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THE 



S 

MAN WPIO LAUGHS 



FROM THE FRENCH OP 


VICTOR HUGO. 

» 




V 

TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM YOUNG. 



NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

- ’ 90, 92 & 94 GRAND STREET. 

1869. 


V 



I 






V 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
I D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

* In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern district 

of New York, 


e 

c 

« Cr 

« c 

r r «. 


4 



NOTE BY THE TEANSLATOE. 




Theee has been so much discussion as to the proper rendering of the 
original title of this work, “ L’Homme Qui Rit,” that it may be advisable 
to state why “ The Man who Laughs ” has been adopted. It is not only 
literal in version, it expresses at the same time the author’s meaning as 
nearly as the genius of the English tongue allows. Had Victor Hugo 
intended to convey the idea of “ The Laughing or, in fact,^of 

a voluntary laughter, he would have called his book “Xe Lieur^'^ oi 
JO Somme Rieur^'^ just as in his own language the laughing hyena is 
called Vhylne rieuse, and not Vhyhie qui rit. “ The Laughing Man” can- 
not be correctly rendered into French by V Homme qui rit ; Vhomme qui 
rit is “ The Man who Laughs,” and nothing else. 

Another point may be noticed. The hurry, consequent on the pecu- 
liar agreement between the publishers in Paris and in this city, has given 
rise to an error, more curious perhaps than important. The fifth chapter 
of Book I., Part I., is headed “ Human Intervention,” though the proper, 
and far more significant heading is “ The Tree of Human Invention.” 
The mistake arose thus : The translation was made from slips forwarded 
hither by mail ; and the title of this particular chapter was so tom in 
transmission, that the imperfect phrase “ . . . vention Surname ” was 
alone legible. A filling-up was requisite immediately, and the term 
“ Human Intervention ” was adopted at a guess. 

The careful and critical reader will find occasional errors in history 
and geography, and not a few in Victor Hugo’s English nomenclature. 
These have not been unobserved ; but the translator does not deem it his 
duty to correct them. 


P E E F A C E. 


England all is great, even that which is not good, even 

oligarchy. The English patriciate is the patriciate in the precise 

IK . 

meaning of the word. 'No feudality more illustrious, more terrible, 
and more full of life. We may remark, also, that this feudality has 
been useful in its time. It is in England that this phenomenon, no- 
bility, ought to be studied, just as it is in France, that we ought to 
study this phenomenon, royalty. 

The true title of this book might have been Aristocracy. Another 
book, which will follow, may be entitled Monarchy. And these two ) 
books — if it is permitted to the author to complete this labor — ^will 
precede and lead to another, which will be called Ninety-Three. 

Eauteville-House, 1869 , 






OONTESTTS 





I.— Ursu3 


V 

PRELIMINARY CHAPTERS, 


PAGE I PAGE 

1 1 n.— The Comprachicos 13 


PART I . 

/ 

SEA AND NIGHT. 


BOOK L 

NIGHT LESS DARK THAN MAN. 

I.— The South Point of Portland 21 

II.— Isolation 24 

m.— Solitude 26 

IV. — Questions 29 

V.— Human Inten'ention 30 

VH.— The North Point of Portland 36 

BOOK II. 

THE ORK AT SEA. 

I.— The Outer Laws 39 

II.— Filling up the Original Profiles 40 

III. — Unquiet Men on an Unquiet Sea 43 

rv’’. — A Cloud, different from the others, 

comes upon the Scene i:.. 45 

V. — ^Hardquanonne 50 

YI.— 1 aey think they obtain Help 51 

VII.— Sacred Horror 52 

VIH.-Nis et Nos 64 


IX. — A Charge confided to the Furious 

Sea 50 

X. — Storm is the Great Savage 5? 

XI. — The Caskets 59 

Xn. — Hand to Hand with the Kocks GO 

Xin. — ^Face to Face with the Night 02 

XIV.— Ortach 63 

XV. — Gigantic Caprices G-l 

XVI. — The Enigma suddenly relaxes 07 

XviJ. — The Last Resource 68 

XVni. — The Supreme Resource 70 

BOOK III. 

THE CHILD AND THE NIGHT. 

I.— Chess-Hill 74 

II.— Effect of Snow 77 

HI.— Every Sad Way has its Extra Bur- 
den 80 

IV.— The Desert under another Form 82 

V. — Misanthropy plajdng its Pranks &5 

VI. —Waking 03 


PART II. 

DY THE KINHS COMMAND. 


BOOK I. 

ETERNAL PRESENCE OF THE PAST ; MEN 
THROW LIGHT UPON MAN. 


I.— Lord Clancharlie 99 

II.— Lord David Dirry-Moir 106 

III. — The Duchess Josiane 109 

n'.— Magister Elegantiarum 115 


V. — Queen Anne 119 

VI.— Barkilphedro 124 

Vn.— Barkilphedro shown up 127 

VIIL— Inferi ISO 

IX. — Hate is as strong as Love 182 

X. — ^Flamlngs that w'ould be seen, if Man 

were transparent — 136 

XL— Barkilphedro in Ambush 141 

XII.— Scotland, Ireland, and England 143 


vi 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK II. 

GWYNPLAINE AND DEA. 

PAGE 

I.— A Sight of the Man’s Face, whose Ac- 


tions only have been seen hitherto 148 

II.— Dea 151 

ni. — “ Ocnlos non hahet, et videt ” 153 

IV. — The Lovers paired 154 

V. — The Blue in the Black 156 

VI. — Ursus Tutor, and TJrsus Guardian 157 

VII. — Blindness gives Lessons in Clairvoy- 

ance 158 

VIII. — Not Happiness only, but Prosperity. 160 

IX.— Extravagances that Tasteless Folks 

call Poetry 164 

X.— An Outsider’s Survey of Men and 

Things 167 

XI. — Gwynplaine has Justice on his Side ; 

Ursus has Truth 170 

XII.— Ursus the Poet carries away Ursus 

the Philosopher 175 

BOOK III. 

OPENING OP THE FISSURE. 

I.— The Tadcaster Inn 177 

II.— Out-of-door Eloquence 179 

in.— Wherein the Passer-by reappears 182 

IV. — Opposites fraternize in Hate 185 

V. — The Wapentake 188 

VI. — The Mice cross-examined by the Cats 190 
Vn.— What Eeasons can a Doubloon have 
for keeping Bad Company among 

' Two-penny Pieces 195 

Vin.— Symptoms of Poisoning 198 

IX.— Abyssus abyssumvocat 201 


BOOK IV. 


THE PENAL TAULT. 

I. — The Temptation of St. Gwynplaine.. 205 
II.— From Gay to Grave 209 

III. — Lex, rex, fex 213 

IV. — Ursus plays the Spy on the Police 215 ' 

V. — A Bad Place 210 

VI.— What Magistracies there were under 

the Periwigs of Olden Time 219 

^m.— Shudderings 221 

VIII.— Groaning 222 


BOOK V. 

THE SEA AND FATE ARE STIRRED BY THE 


SAME BLAST. 

I.— Solidity of Fragile Things 230 

n. — The Wanderer does not always lose 

his Way 236 


PAGE 

ni.— No man could pass abruptly from Si- 
beria to Senegal, without losing 


Consciousness.— 242 

rv. — Fascination 244 

V.— Forgetfulness believing that it re- 
members 248 


BOOK VI. 

URSUS FROM TARIOUS POINTS OP VIEW. 


1. — What the Misanthropist says 252 

n. — What he does 254 

III.— Complications 262 

rv.— Mcenibus surdis campana muta 263 

V. — State Keasons work on a Small, as on 

a Large Scale 266 


BOOK VII. 

THE SHE-TITAN. 


1. — ^Waking 272 

n.— Likeness of a Palace to a Wood 273 

HI.- Eve 275 

rv.— Satan 278 

V.— We recognize those whom we do not 

know 284 


BOOK VIII. 

THE CAPITOL AND ITS ‘NEIGIIBORilOOD. 


I.— Dissection of Things Majestical 285 

II.— Impartiality . 293 

in.— The Old Hall 298 

IV.— The Old Chamber *. 301 

V. — Lofty Prattle 304 

VI.— Upper and Lower 308 

VII.— Human Storms worse than Ocean 

Storms 310 

Vni.— Would be Good Brother if he were 

not Good Son 321 


BOOK IX. 

. IN RUIN. * 

L— Excess of Misery is reached through 


Excess of Grandeur 324 

II.— Settling-up 326 


CONCLUSION. 

SEA AND NIGHT. 

I.— Watch-dog may be Guardian Ant^l.. 337 
n.— Barkilphedro, aiming at the Eagle, 

shoots the Dove 340 

ni.— Paradise found again here below 344 


PRELIMINAKY CHAPTEKS 


I.— URSUS. 

I. 

Uesijs and Homo Tvere fast friends. 
Ursus was a man; Homo was a wolf. 
Their dispositions were congenial. It 
was the man who had christened the 
wolf. Probably he had also chosen the 
name; having found JJrm% good for 
himself, he had found Romo good for 
the beast. The association of this man 
and this wolf was profitable at fains, at 
parish festivals, at the corners of streets 
where passers-by gather together, and 
wherever the people give way to their 
need of listening to nonsense and buying 
orvietan. This wolf, docile, and submis- 
sive with a good grace, was acceptable 
to the crowd. It is a pleasant thing to 
note the effect of taming. "We take su- 
preme delight in seeing aU varieties of 
domestication. It is for this reason 
that so many persons watch the prog- 
ress of royal processions. 

Ursus and Homo went from square 
to square, from the public places of 
Canterbury to the public places of Glas- 
gow, from county to county, from town 
to town. One market exhausted, they 
passed on to another. Ursus lived in 
a crib upon wheels, which Homo, suffi- 
ciently civilized, drew by day and 
guarded by night. When the road was 
difficult, in going up-hill, when there 
were too many ruts and too much mud, 
the man buckled the strap to his neck. 


and tugged away fraternally, side by 
side with the wolf. In this fashion they 
had grown old together. They camped 
out, according to chance, on a bit of 
waste ground, at the intersection of 
crossing roads, at the approach to a 
hamlet, at the gates of market-towns, 
in the market-places, in the public 
malls, on the skirts of a park, on the 
space before a church. When the tilted 
cart stopped in some field where a fair 
was he^td, when the gossiping old women 
hurried up open-mouthed, when the 
cockneys drew round them in a circle, 
Ursus speechified and Homo approved. 
Homo, with a wooden bowl in his jaws, 
politely made a collection. They gained 
their livelihood. The wolf was let- 
tered, and the man too. The wolf had 
been trained by the man, or had trained 
himself alone, to various pretty wolfine 
ways that .augmented their receipts. 
“Above all things,” said his friend to 
him, “ don’t degenerate into man ! ” 
The wolf never bit, the man did bite 
sometimes. Ursus, at least, had the 
.pretension of biting. He was a misan- 
thrope, and, by way of making his mis- 
anthropy conspicuous, he had become 
a juggler. For means of living also, 
as the stomach imposes its conditions. 
Furthermore, this misanthropical jug- 
gler, whether to complicate or to com- 
plete his acquirements, was a doctor. 
A doctor — that’s not much ; Ursus was 
a ventriloquist. He was seen to speak 


2 


PEELIMINAEY CHAPTEES. 


without movement of the lips. He 
borrowed, so as to mislead any one, the 
accent and pronunciation of the first 
comer ; he imitated voices, so that one 
thought the very persons were speak- 
ing. By himself alone, he gave out the 
breathing and murmur of a crowd, 
which justified him in taking the title 
of Engastrimythe. He took it. He 
imitated all sorts of birds’ cries, the 
thrush, the reed-bird, the chirping 
lark, the white-breasted blackbird, all 
ramblers like himself, so that, by in- 
stants, he made you listen, at his op- 
tion, either to some public resort, filled 
with the hum of human noises, or to a 
meadow filled with the chant of birds ; 
now stormy as a multitude, now play- 
ful and serene as the dawn. However, 
this peculiar talent, though rare, does 
exist. In the last century, a man named 
Touzel, who imitated the mingled 
clamor of men and of animals, and who 
reproduced all the cries of beasts, was 
attached to the person of Buffon, as 
though himself a menagerie. IJrsus was 
sharp and inquisitive, having more in 
him than appeared, and was prone to 
those peculiar explanations that we call 
fables. This boldness was a part of his 
roguery. He examined the hand of 
certain persons, or took hold of books 
at hap-hazard, and drew conclusions, 
predicted fortunes, taught that it is 
dangerous to meet a black mare, and 
more dangerous still to hear one’s self 
called, at the moment of setting out 
upon a journey, by some one who does 
not know where you are going ; and he 
entitled himself a “dealer in supersti- 
tion.” He said : “ There is this differ- 
ence between the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury and myself : for my part, I speak 
out plainly.” Thus it was that the 
archbishop, justly irritated, sent for 
him one day; but Ursus, adroit, dis- 
armed his grace by reciting to him a 
sermon that he, Ursus, had made upon 
the holy day of Christmas, and which 


the archbishop, charmed by it, learned 
by heart, preached from the pulpit, and 
published as his own composition. In 
view of this, he forgave. 

Ursus, being a doctor, effected cures, 
because or in spite of this fact. Ho 
practised in aromatics. He was versed 
in simples. He derived advantage 
from the immense power that there is 
in a heap of neglected plants, the 
hazel-tree, the medley-tree, the way- 
faring-tree, the purging thorn, the 
sweet briony, the buckthorn. He treated 
consumption by sun-dew ; he used for 
it the leaves of wart-wort, which torn 
downward are a purgative, and torn 
upward produce vomiting. He relieved 
you of a sore throat by means of a 
vegetable excrescence called jew’s ear. 
He knew the sort of rushes that cure 
an ox, and the sort of mint that cures a 
horse. He was conversant with the 
beauties and the virtues of the herb 
mandragora, which, every one knows, 
is of masculine and feminine sex. He 
had receipts. He cured burns with sal- 
amander wool, whereof, according to 
Pliny, Hero owned a napkin. Ursus 
possessed a retort and a matrass; he 
dabbled in transmutation ; he sold pan- 
aceas. It was said of him that he had 
formerly been for a while confined in 
Bedlam ; they had done him the honor 
to take him for a madman, but they 
had let him go, perceiving that he was 
only a poet. This story, probably, was 
not true ; we have', all of us, to under- 
go some such imputations. 

The truth is, that Ursus was a pe- 
dantic scholar, a man of taste, and an 
old Latin poet. He was learned in two 
ways: he Hippocratized and ho Pindar- 
ized. He might have competed in fus- 
tian with Eapin and Veda. lie would 
have composed jesuitical tragedies in a 
style not less triumphant than Father 
Bonhours. From his familiarity with 
venerable rhythms and antique metres, 
it resulted that he had his own peculiar 


UKSUS. 


8 


images, and a whole cloud of classic 
metaphors. He said of a mother, pre- 
ceded hy her two daughters, “This is a 
dactyl ; ” of a father, followed by his 
two sons, “This is an anapa 3 st;” and 
of a little child, walking between its 
grandfather and grandmother, “ This is 
an amphimacer.” So much science 
could only result in starvation. The 
school of Salerno said: “Eat little and 
often! ” Ursus eat little and seldom, 
obeying thus one-half the precept, and 
disobeying the other half ; but this was 
the fault of the public, which did not 
always flock round him, and did not 
purchase frequently. Ursus used to 
say : “ The expectoration of a sentence 
is a solace. The wolf is consoled by 
howling, the sheep by its wool, the for- 
est by its warblers, woman by love, and 
the philosopher by epiphonema.” Ur- 
sus, at need, manufactured comedies, 
that he played — after a fashion; this 
aids in disposing of drugs. He had, 
among other works, composed an he- 
roic pastoral in honor of Sir Hugh Mid- 
dleton, who, in 1698, transported a 
river to London. This river was tran- 
quil in the county of Hertford, sixty 
miles ofl^. Sir Hugh Middleton came 
and took it. He brought with him a 
brigade of six hundred men armed with 
shovels and pickaxes; set himself to 
shaking up the earth, hollowing it here, 
throwing it up there, sometimes twen- 
ty feet high, sometimes thirty feet deep ; 
made wooden aqueducts in the air, and 
in this place and that eight hundred 
bridges, of stone, of brick, of joists; 
and, one flne morning, the river entered 
into London, which lacked water. Ursus 
transformed all these vulgar details into 
a fine eclogue between the stream 
Thames and the river Serpentine ; the 
stream invited the river to come to 
him, and otfered her his bed, and said 
to her : “I am too old to please the 
women, but I am sufficiently rich to 
pay them” — an ingenious and gallant 


mode of expressing that Sir Hugh Mid- 
dleton had execut(^l all these works at 
his own expense. 

Ursus was remarkable in a soliloquy. 
In look, morose at once and garru- 
lous, having no desire to see any one, 
and craving to address some one, he 
got out of the difficulty by speaking to 
himself. Whoever has lived alone 
knows to what extent the monologue 
is natural. There is an itching in lan- 
guage repressed. To harangue space 
is an issue for it. To speak aloud, and 
all alone, has the effect of a dialogue 
with the god that one has within one’s 
self. This, it is well known, was the 
custom of Socrates. He harangued 
himself; the same with Luther. Ursus 
was akin to these great men. He had 
this hermaphroditic faculty of being his 
own audience. He made inquiries of 
himself, and responded; he glorified 
and he insulted himself. His mono- 
logue in his crib might be heard from 
the stpet. Passers-by, who have their 
own special manner of appreciating 
clever fellows, said of him: “He is an 
idiot.” He insulted himself sometimes, as 
we have just remarked ; but he had also 
his periods for doing himself justice. 
One day, in one of his self-addressed 
allocutions, he was heard to exclaim; 
“I have studied vegetable life in all its 
mysteries, in the stem, in the bud, in 
the sepal, in the petal, in the stamen, 
in the carpel, in the ovule, in the urn, 
in the conceptacle, ftnd in the thalamus. 
I have fully probed chromatics, and os- 
mosis, and chyrnosium, that is to say, the 
formation of color, of smell, and of 
taste.” There was, without doubt, 
some foolishness in this certificate that 
Ursus delivered to Ursus ; but let those 
who have not fully probed chromatics, 
and osmosis, and chyrnosium, cast at 
him the first stone. 

Fortunately, Ursus never went into 
the Netherlands. They vould certainly 
have desired to weigh him there, to as- 


4 


PEELIMINAEY CHAPTEES. 


certain whetlier lie was of the normal 
weight, above or below which a man is 
a sorcerer. This weight, in Holland, 
was wisely fixed by the law. Nothing 
could bo more simple and more ingen- 
ious. It was a verification. You 
were placed in wooden scales, and the 
evidence was conclusive if you dis- 
turbed the equilibrium : too heavy, you 
^ were hanged; too light, you were 
burned. There are still to be seen, at 
Oudewater, the scales for weighing sor- 
cerers, but they serve now for weigh- 
ing cheese, so much has religion degen- 
erated! Ursus would certainly have 
had a crow to pluck with them. In his 
journeyings he avoided Holland, and 
he did well. In fact, we believe that 
he never went out of Great Britain. 

Be that as it may, being very poor 
and very proud, and having made the 
acquaintance of Homo in a forest, a 
taste for wandering life came upon him. 
He had taken this wolf in as a sleeping 
partner, and he had taken the road with 
him, living, in the open air, the grand 
life of chance. He had much industry, 
and many by-ends, and great skill in 
all things connected with curing, op- 
erating, getting people out of their mal- 
adies, and accomplishing most wonder- 
ful specialties; he was considered a 
good mountebank and a good doctor ; 
he passed also, one may understand, for 
a magician — in a moderate way, not too 
much of it— for in those days it was 
not wholesome to be set down as one 
of the devil’s friends. To tell the truth, 
Ursus, by his passion for pharmacy and 
love of plants, exposed himself to dan- 
ger-considering how often he went to 
gather herbs in the tangled thickets, 
where are Lucifer’s salads, and where 
one risks, as has been attested by the 
Councillor De I’Ancre, meeting in the 
mist of the evening a man who rises 
6ut of the ground, “blind of his right 
eye, without cloak, a sword at his side, 
feet naked and unshod.” Ursus, never- 


theless, although queer in his conduct 
and temperament, was too sensible a 
man to draw down or keep off a hail- 
storm; to cause faces to appear ; to kill 
a man with the torment of too much 
dancing; to suggest dreams pleasant, 
or sad and full of terrors ; to cause the 
hatching of a four- winged cock. He did 
not pretend to these sorry tricks. He 
was incapable of certain abominations ; 
as, for example, of speaking German, or 
Hebrew, or Greek, without having 
learned it, which is an indication of 
most execrable wickedness, or of a nat- 
ural malady growing out of some mel- 
ancholy caprice. If Ursus spoke Latin, 
it was because he knew it. He would 
never have allowed himself tp speak 
Syriac, seeing that he knew it not ; be- 
sides, it is averred that Syriac is the lan- 
guage of the "witches’ night assemblies. 
In medicine, he properly preferred Ga- 
len to Cardan — Cardan, all learned 
man that he is, being only an earth- 
worm in comparison with Galen. 

To sum up, Ursus was not a person- 
age molested by the police. His crib 
was sufficiently long and sufficiently 
broad, so that he could lie down there 
on a chest that contained his not over- 
sumptuous wardrobe. He owned a 
lantern, several wigs, and various uten- 
sils hung up from nails, and among 
them some musical instruments. He 
possessed also a bear-skin, with which 
he covered himself on the days of a 
grand performance, calling this the 
putting on his costume. He said: “I 
have two skins; this is the true one,” 
and he pointed to the skin of the bear. 
The crib on wheels belonged to him 
and the wolf. In addition to his 
crib, his horn, and his wolf, he had a 
flute and a viol di gamba^ and he 
played agreeably upon them. He 
manufactured his own elixirs. He 
wrought out of his talents enough to 
bring him an occasional supper. There 
was in the roof of his crib a hole. 


UESUS. 


5 


through which passed the pipe of a 
casting-stove alongside of his chest. 
This stove had two compartments. 
Ursus cooked up his alchemy in one, 
and his potatoes in the other. At 
night, the wolf slept under the crib, 
chained up in a friendly way. Homo 
had black hair, and Ursus gray hair. 
Ursus was fifty years old, if he were 
not sixty. His acceptance of human 
destiny was such, that he eat, as is 
perceived, potatoes — filthy food, upon 
which at that period swine and con- 
victs were fed. He eat this, indignant, 
yet resigned. He was not tall, he was 
long. He was bent, and gloomy. The 
bowed-down figure of the old man — 
this is the subsidence of life. Nature 
had designed him to be sad. It was 
difficult for him to smile, and it had al- 
ways been impossible for him to weep. 
He lacked the consolation of tears, and 
the palliative of joy. An aged man is 
a thinking ruin ; Ursus was that ruin. 
A charlatan’s loquacity, a prophet’s 
leanness, the irascibility of a mine 
that is charged — such was Ursus. In 
his youth he had been a philosopher at 
the home of a lord. 

This passed, a hundred and eighty 
years ago, in the days when men were 
a little more like wolves than th ey are 
at present. 

Not much more. 

II. 

Homo was not the first wolf that 
came to hand. From his appetite for 
medlars and apples, one would have 
taken him for a prairie wolf ; from the 
deep color of his hair, one would have 
taken him for a lycaon ; and from his 
howling toned down to a bark, one 
would have taken him for a Chilian dog ; 
but the pupil of this animal’s iris has not 
yet been so accurately observed, as to 
make it certain that he is not a fox, 
and Homo was a thorough wolf. His 
length was five feet, which is extreme 


length for a wolf, even in Lithuania. 
He was very powerful; he squinted, 
which was not his fault ; he had a soft 
tongue, with which he sometimes 
licked Ursus; he had a stiff tuft of 
short black hair upon his backbone, 
and he was lean as any beast of the 
forest. Before making acquaintance 
with Ursus, and having a cart to drag, 
he did easily his forty leagues in a 
night. Ursus, falling in with him in a 
thicket, near a stream of running water, 
had taken a fancy to him, on seeing 
him fish for crawfish knowingly and 
prudently, and had welcomed in him 
an honest and genuine Koupava wolf, 
of the same kind as the crab-eating 
dog. 

Ursus preferred Homo, as a beast of 
burden, to an ass. To make an ass 
draw his crib would have been repul- 
sive to him ; he set too high a value 
upon the ass for that. Besides, he had 
remarked that the ass, a four-footed 
thinker, little understood of men, has 
some/dmes an unquiet prickiog up of 
the ears, when philosophers say fool- 
ish things. In life, between our 
thoughts and ourselves, an ass is a 
third party; this is annoying. As a 
friend, Ursus preferred Homo to a dog, 
believing that the wolfs approach to 
friendliness is from a greater distance. 

This is why Homo sufficed to Ursus. 
Homo was for Ursus more than a com- 
panion; he was an analogue. Ursus 
tapped him on his lean flanks with the 
remark: “I have found my second 
volume.” 

He said furthermore : “ When I am 
dead, whoever desires to know me. 
wiU only have to study Homo. I 
shall leave him after me as my exact 
copy.” 

The English law, by no meaus ten- 
der toward the beasts of the forest, 
might have taken offence at this wolf, 
and have found fault with him for his 
impudence in going familiarly into 


6 


PEELIMINAEY CHAPTEES. 


towns ; but Homo took advantage of 
the immunity accorded by a statute of 
Edward IV., touching “ domestics : ” 
“ Every domestic following his master 
shall be allowed to come and go free- 
ly.” A certain relaxing as regards 
wolves had also resulted from a fashion 
among court-ladies, under the later Stu- 
arts, that of having httle Tartar foxes 
called Adives, no bigger than cats, which 
they had brought for them from Asia 
at heavy expense. 

IJrsus had communicated to Homo 
a portion of his talents, the standing 
upright, the tempering his rage into 
ill-humor, the grumbling in place of 
howling, etc. ; and, on his part, the 
wolf had taught the man what he knew, 
the dispensing with a home, the dis- 
pensing with bread, the dispensing 
with fire, the preference of hunger in a 
wood to slavery in a palace. 

The crib, a sort of cabin-carriage 
that followed the most varied itinerary, 
without however going out of England 
and Scotland, had four wheels, plus 
shafts for the wolf, and a swing-bar 
for the man. This swing-bar was a 
provision against bad roads. The car- 
riage was solid, though constructed of 
light planks. It had, in front, a glass 
door, with a little balcony used for 
harangues — a tribune modified from a 
pulpit — and, in the rear, a full door 
pierced with a window. The lowering 
of steps — there were three of them — 
turning on a hinge and arranged be- 
hind the windowed door, gave entrance 
into the crib, well secured at night 
with bolts and locks. It had been 
much rained upon and snowed upon. 
It had been painted ; but it were hard 
to say of what color, the changes of 
the seasons being for tilted carts what 
changes in a reign are for courtiers. 
In front, outside, upon a sort of deal- 
board frontispiece, one might formerly 
have deciphered this inscription in 
black letters upon a white ground. 


that had become by degi-ees con- 
founded and mixed : 

“ Gold loses annually by friction 
one fourteen-hundredth of its bulk; 
this is what is called the wear and 
tear: thence it follows that, out of 
fourteen hundred millions of gold cir- 
culating throughout all the world, 
every year one million is lost. This 
million of gold goes off in dust, flies 
away, floats, is an atom, becomes 
breathable, loads, doses, burdens, and 
impairs the conscience, and amalga- 
mates itself with the soul of the rich, 
which it renders proud, and with the 
soul of the poor, which it renders sav- 
age.” 

This inscription, effaced and erased 
by rain and by the goodness of Provi- 
dence, was fortunately illegible ; for it 
is probable that, being at once enig- 
matical and transparent, this philos- 
ophy of gold inhaled would not have 
suited the taste of sheriffs, provosts, and 
other wig-bearers of the law. English 
legislation at that time did not stand 
upon trifles. It was easy to be a felon. 
The magistrates showed themselves 
traditionally ferocious, and cruelty was 
the order of the day. Inquisitorial 
judges 'were multiplied. Jeffreys had 
left offspring. 

III. 

WiTHiNsiDE the crib there were two 
other inscriptions. Above the chest, 
on the whitewashed partition of planks, 
might be read what follows, written in 
ink and by hand : 

“The Only Things That It Is Im- 
POETANT To Know. 

“ The baron peer of England has a 
circlet with six pearls. 

“ The coronet begins with the vis- 
count. 

“The viscount has a coronet of 
pearls not numbered ; the earl, a cor- 
onet of pearls on spikes intermixed 
with strawberry-leaves lower down ; 


UESUS. 


7 


tlie marquis, pearls and leaves of equal 
height ; the duke, gems without pearls ; 
the royal duke, a circlet of a cross and 
Jieurs-de-lys ; the Prince of "Wales, a 
crown like that of the king, hut not 
closed. 

“The duke is most high and most 
mighty prince; the marquis and the 
earl, most noble and mighty lord ; the 
baron, simply lord. 

“ The duke is your grace, the other 
peers are your lordships. * 

“ The peers are inviolable. 

“ The lords are chamber and court, 
concilium et curia^ legislature and jus- 
tice. 

“ ‘ Most honorable ’ is more than 
‘ right honorable.’ 

“ The lords peers are qualified ‘ lords 
by right ; ’ the lords not peers are 
‘lords by courtesy.’ The only lords 
are those who are peers. 

“ The lord never takes an oath, 
neither before the king, nor in court 
of law. His word is enough. He says : 
‘ Upon my honor.’ 

“The Commons, who are the peo- 
ple, summoned to the bar of the Lords, 
present themselves there humbly, heads 
bare, before the peers who are covered. 

“The Commons send up their bills 
to the Lords by forty members, who 
present the bill with three low bows. 

“The Lords send their bills to the 
Commons by a simple clerk. 

“In case of disagreement, the two 
Chambers confer in the painted cham- 
ber, the Peers seated and wearing their 
hats, the Commons standing up and 
uncovered. 

“By a law of Edward YL, the lords 
have the privilege of simple homicide. 
A lord -who only kills a man is not 
prosecuted. 

“ The barons have the same rank as 
the bishops. 

“To be baron peer, one must hold 
of the king by laroniam integram^ by 
barony entire. 


“The barony entire is composed of 
thirteen fiefs noble and one quartering, 
each fief noble being of twenty pounds 
sterling, which amounts to four hun- 
dred marks. 

“The chief thing in the barony, 
cayut laronice^ is a country seat, heredi- 
tarily governed, as England herself is ; 
that is to say, incapable of being vested 
in daughters save in default of male chil- 
dren, and in this case going to the eld- 
est daughter, cmteris Jiliabus aliunda 
satisfactis.'^ 

“The barons have the title of lord 
from the Saxon laford^ from the old 
Latin dominus^ and from the lower Latin 
lordus. 

“The elder and younger sons of vis- 
counts and barons are the first esquires 
of the kingdom. 

“ The eldest sons of peers take pre- 
cedence over knights of the Garter ; 
the younger sons do not. 

“ The eldest son of a viscount walks 
behind all the barons, and before all 
the bayonets. 

“ Every daughter of a lord is lady. 
Other English girls are miss. 

“All the judges are inferior to the 
peers. The sergeant has a hood of 
lamb’s skin; the judge has a hood of 
minever, de minuto vario^ a mixture of 
small white furs of all sorts except 
ermine. Ermine is reserved for peers 
and for the king. 

“A supplicavit cannot be granted 
against a lord. 

“ A lord cannot be kept in prison — 
except in the Tower of London. 

“A lord summoned to the king’s 
abode has the right to kill a stag or 
two in the royal park. 

“ The lord holds in his chateau a 
baronial court. 

“It is unworthy of a lord to go into 
the streets, in a cloak, followed by two 

* “Which is the same as saying: ‘One pro- 
vides for the other girls as one can.’ ” (Note, 
by Ursns, on the edge of the wall.) 


PEELIMINAEY JjHAPTEES. 


8 

lackeys. He can only show himself 
with a large train of gentlemen of his 
household. 

“The peers go to the Parliament- 
house in carriages, in file; the com- 
mons do not. Some peers go to West- 
minster in inverted chairs upon four 
wheels. The form of these chairs, and 
of their emblazoned and coronetted 
vehicles, is only allowed to the lords, 
and constitutes one of their privileges. 

“ A lord can only be condemned to 
a fine by his peers, and never to more 
than five shillings’ fine — except a duke, 
who may be condemned to ten. 

“A lord may have in his household 
six foreigners. Every other English- 
man can only have four. 

“A lord may have eight casks of 
wine, without paying duty. 

“The lord alone is exempted from 
presenting himself before the sheriff on 
circuit. 

“The lord cannot be taxed for the 
militia. 

“ When a lord is so pleased, he raises 
a regiment, and presents it to the king ; 
thus do their graces the Duke of Athol, 
the Duke of Hamilton, and the Duke 
of Northumberland. 

“ The lord holds only of lords. 

“In a civil process, he may claim 
reference of the cause to another court, 
if there be not at least a knight among 
the judges. 

“The lord appoints his own chap- 
lains. 

“ A baron appoints three chaplains ; 
a \dscount four ; an earl and a marquis 
five ; a duke six. 

“ The lord cannot be put to the tor- 
ture, even for high-treason. 

“ The lord cannot be branded on the 
hand. 

“The lord is clerk, even when he 
knows not how to read. He knows it 
of right. 

“ A duke has a canopy carried with 
him wherever the king is not present ; 


a viscount has a canopy in his house. 
A baron has one in readiness, and lets 
it be within his reach when he drinks ; 
a baroness has the right to have her 
train borne by a man, when in pres- 
ence of a viscountess. 

“Eighty-six lords, or eldest sons of 
lords, preside at eighty-six tables of five 
hundred covers each, which are served 
every day to his Majesty in his palace, 
at the expense of the country surround- 
ing the royal residence. 

“A plebeian, who strikes a lord, has 
his wrist cut off. 

“ The lord is almost king. 

“ The king is almost God. 

“ The world is a lordship. 

“ The English address God as my 
lordP 

Opposite this inscription, a second 
one might be read, written in the same 
style. Here it is : 

“ Consolations That Ought To Suf- 
fice Foe Those Who Have Nothing. 

“ Henry Auderquerque, Earl of Grant- 
ham, who sits in the House of Lords 
between the Earl of Jersey and the 
Earl of Greenwich, has an income of 
one hundred thousand pounds. It is to 
his lordship that the palace of Grant- 
ham Terrace belongs, built all of marble, 
and famous for what is called the laby- 
rinth of corridors, which is a curiosity. 
There is in it the carnation corridor in 
Sarancolin marble, the brown corridor 
in Astracan lumachel, the white corri- 
dor in Lani marble, the black corridor 
in Alabanda marble, the gray corridor 
in Staremma marble, the yellow corri- 
dor in marble from Hesse, the green 
corridor in marble from the Tyrol, the 
red corridor half in Bohemian griotte, 
and half in Cordovan lumachel, the 
blue corridor in turquin from Genoa, 
the violet corridor in Catalonian gran- 
ite, the mourning corridor, veined in 
black and white, in Murviedro schist, 
the rose corridor in cipolin from the 


UESUS. 


Alps, tlie pearl corridor in i^onetta 
lumachel, and tlie corridor of all colors, 
called the courtiers’ corridor, in harle- 
quin hraccio. 

“Eichard Lowther, Yiscount Lons- 
dale, owns Lowther in Westmoreland, 
which is sumptuous in its approaches, 
and the door-steps of which appear to 
invite kings to enter. 

“ Eichard, Earl of Scarborough, Vis- 
count and Baron Lumley, Viscount of 
Waterford in Ireland, Lord-Lieutenant 
and Vice-Admiral of the county of 
N’orthumherland, and of Durham city 
and county, owns the double castle of 
Stansted, the ancient and the modern ; 
where may be admired a superb railing 
in a half circle, surrounding a basin of 
water with an incomparable jet. He 
has, in addition, his chateau at Lumley. 

“ Eobert Darcy, Earl of Holderness, 
has his domain of Holderness, with ba- 
ronial towers, and gardens of immense 
extent in the French style, where he 
takes the air in a carriage with six 
horses, preceded by two outriders, as 
befits an English peer. 

“ Charles Beauclerk, Duke of St. Al- 
bans, Earl of Burford, Baron Hadding- 
ton, Grand Falconer of England, has a 
residence at Windsor, a royal one, and 
near to that of the king. 

“Charles Bodville, Lord Eobartes, 
Baron Truro, Viscount Bodmin, owns 
Wimple, in Cambridgeshire, which is 
made up of three palaces with three 
pedimented fronts, one arched and two 
triple-angled. The approach is through 
a quadruple avenue of trees. 

“The most noble and most mighty 
lord, Philip Herbert, Viscount of Car- 
diff, Earl of Montgomery, Earl of Pem- 
broke, peer and lord of Candall, Mar- 
mion, St. Quentin, and Churland, War- 
den of the Stanneries in the counties of 
Cornwall and Devon, Hereditary Visit- 
or of Jesus College, owns the maiwel- 
lous garden of Wilton, where, there are 
two water-basins with wheat-sheaf jets. 


9 

finer than any at Versailles, of the 
most Christian king Louis XIV. 

“Charles Seymour, Duke of Somer- 
set, has Somerset House on the Thames, 
which equals the Villa Pamphili at 
Eome. There may be seen, upon the 
grand chimney-piece, two porcelain 
vases of the dynasty of the Yuens, which 
are worth half a million in French 
money. 

“ In Yorkshire, Arthur, Lord Ingram, 
Viscount Irwin, has Temple-Xewsham, 
where you enter by a triumphal arch, 
and where the broad flat roofs resemble 
Moorish terraces. 

“ Eobert, Lord Torrens of Chartley, 
Bourchier, and Lorraine, has, in Lei- 
cestershire, Staunton - Harold, where 
the park, geometrically laid out, has 
the form of a temple with a pediment ; 
and the large church, with square bell 
tower, in front of the sheet of water, is 
also his lordship’s. 

“In the county of Northampton, 
Charles^ Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, 
one of his Majesty’s privy council, pos- 
sesses Althorp, where you enter through 
a railing with four pillars, surmounted 
by groups in marble. 

“ Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Eochester, 
has, in Surrey, New-Park, magnificent 
with its sculptured blocking-course, its 
circular lawn surrounded by trees, and 
its woods, at the end of which is a lit- 
tle mountain artistically rounded, and 
crowned with a towering oak visible a 
long way off. 

“Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chester- 
field, owns Bretby, in Derbyshire, which 
has a superb clock-tower, falconries, 
warrens, and very beautiful sheets of 
water, oblong, square, and oval, with 
two jets of great height. 

“ Lord Cornwallis, Baron of Eye, has 
Brome Hall, which is a palace of the 
fourteenth century. 

“The most noble Algernon Capel, 
Viscount Malden, Earl of Essex, owns 
Cashiobury, in Hertfordshire, a chateau 


10 


PEELIMINAEY CHAPTEES. 


that has the form of a capital II, and 
where there are preserves well stocked 
with game. 

“ Charles, Lord Ossulstone, has Daw- 
ly, in Middlesex, which one reaches 
through Italian gardens. 

“James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, at 
seven leagues’ distance from London, 
has Hatfield House,' with its four seign- 
iorial pavilions, its belfry in the centre, 
and its court of honor, flagged in white 
and black, like that of St. Germain. 
This palace, which has a frontage of two 
hundred and seventy-two feet, was built 
under James I., by the lord high treas- 
urer, who is the great-grandfather of 
the living earl. There may be seen 
the bed of a Countess of Salisbury, of 
inestimable value, entirely made of a 
Brazilian Avood that is a panacea against 
the bite of serpents, and that is called 
milliorribres^ which means a thousand 
men. Upon this bed is written, in let- 
ters of gold: ‘‘Honi soit qui mal y 
'pense.^"' 

“ EdAvard Eich, Eafl of Warwick and 
Holland, has WarAvick Castle, where 
* they burn whole oak-trees in the fire- 
places. 

“ In the parish of Seven Oaks, Charles 
Sackville, Baron Buckhurst, Viscount 
Cranfield, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, 
has Knowle, which is as large as a 
town, and which is composed of three 
parallel palaces, one behind the other, 
like lines of infantry, with ten spiral 
gables on the principal fa9ade, and an 
entrance beneath a donjon-keep with 
four turrets. 

“Thomas Thynne, Viscount Wey- 
mouth, Baron Varminster, possesses 
Long-Leate, Avhich has almost as many 
chimneys, lanterns, alcoves, pepper- 
casters, paAdlions, and turrets, as Cham- 
bord, in France, belonging to the king. 

“ Henry Howard, Earl of Suffolk, has, 
at a dozen leagues from London, the 
palace of Audley-End, in Middlesex, 
which scarcely yields in vastness and 


majesty to the Escurial of the King of 
Spain. 

“In Bedfordshire, Wrest-House-and- 
Park, which is a whole country enclosed 
within ditches and walls, with woods, 
rivers, and hills, belongs to Henry, Mar- 
quis of Kent. 

“Hampton Court, in Herefordshire, 
with its strongly-battlemented donjon, 
and its garden barred in by a sheet of 
water that separates it from the forest, 
is the property of Thomas, Lord Con- 
ingsby. 

“Grimsthorp, in Lincolnshire, with its 
long fa9ade divided, by lofty turrets in 
impalements, its parks, its fish-ponds, its 
pheasantries, its sheepfolds, its bowling- 
greens, its quincunxes, its malls, its woods 
of old trees, its pastures bordered, quad- 
rilled, and lozenged with flowers, so as to 
resemble vast carpets, its race-grounds, 
and the majesty of the sweep in which 
carriages turn before entering to the cha- 
teau, belongs to Eobert, Earl Lindsay, 
hereditary lord of the forest of Walham. 

“Up-Park, in Sussex, a chateau of 
square form, with two symmetrical bel- 
fry-pavilions on the two sides of the 
court of honor, is owned by the right 
honorable Ford, Lord Grey, Viscount 
Glendale, and Earl of Tankerville. 

“ISTewnham-Padox, in Warwickshire, 
Avhich has two quadrangular fish-ponds, 
and a gable with glass on four sides, 
belongs to the Earl of Denbigh, Avho is 
also Count of Eheinselden in Germany. 

“Wythame, in Berkshire, Avith its 
French garden, in which are cut four 
tunnels, and its grand crenellated tower 
with lofty battlements, is owned by 
Lord Montague, Earl of Abingdon, Avho 
has also Eycott, of which he is baron, 
and of which the principal door bears 
the device, Virtus ariete fortior. 

“ William Cavendish, Duke of De\'- 
onshire, has six eountry-seats, one of 
which is Chatsworth, an edifice of tAvo 
stories, in the finest Greek style ; his 
grace has also his mansion in London, 


UESUS. 


11 


where there is a lion that turns his 
hack on the king’s palace. 

“ Yiscount Kimalmeaky, who is Earl 
of Cork in Ireland, owns Burlington 
House in Piccadilly, with vast gardens 
that extend to the fields outside of 
London. He has also Chiswick, where 
there are nine magnificent main build- 
ings. He has also Londeshurgh, which 
is a new residence, by the side of an 
old palace. 

“The Duke of Beaufort has Chelsea, 
containing two Gothic chateaux and 
one Florentine; he has also Badmin- 
ton in Gloucestershire, which is a resi- 
dence whence a number of avenues di- 
verge after the manner of a star. The 
most noble and mighty prince, Henry 
Duke of Beaufort, is at the same time 
Marquis and Earl of Worcester, Baron 
Paglan, Baron Power, and Baron Her- 
bert of Chepstow. 

“John Holies, Duke of Newcastle 
and Marquis of Clare, is owner of Bol- 
sover, of which the square donjon-keep 
is majestic, besides Haughton in Not- 
tinghamshire, where there is, in the 
centre of a basin, a circular pyramid in 
imitation of the Tower of Babel. 

“ William, Lord Craven, Baron Cra- 
ven of Hampstead, has a residence in 
Warwickshire, Comb Abbey, where 
may be seen the finest jet of water in 
England ; also, in Berkshire, two baro- 
nies — Hampstead-Marshall, the facade 
of which shows five connected Gothic 
lanterns, and Ashdowne Park, which 
is a mansion at the point of intersec- 
tion of several cross-roads in a forest. 

“Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, Baron 
Clancharlie and Hunkerville, Marquis 
of Corleone in Sicily, derives his peer- 
age from the Castle of Clancharlie, 
erected in 914, by Edward the Elder, 
against the Danes; he has also Hun- 
kerville House in London, which is a 
palace; also, at Windsor, Corleone 
Lodge, which is the same thing ; also 
eight dependencies, one at Buxton on 


the Trent, with tolls upon the alabaster 
quarries; then Gumdraith, Homhle, 
Moricamhe, Trenwardraith, Hell-Ker- 
ters, where there is a marvellous well ; 
Pillinmore and its peat-hogs, Eeculver 
near the ancient town Yagniacoe, Yine- 
caunton on the mountain Moilemhli; 
also nineteen market-towns and vil- 
lages with bailiffs, and the whole 
country of Pens-neth-chase, which to- 
gether bring in to his lordship a rent 
of forty thousand pounds sterling. 

“ The one hundred and seventy -two 
peers flourishing under James II. pos- 
sess among them, in lump sum, an an- 
nual revenue of twelve hundred and 
seventy-two thousand pounds sterling, 
which is the eleventh part of the reve- 
nue of England.” 

On the margin, by this last name. 
Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, might he 
read this note in the handwriting of 
Ursus : 

A rebel ; in exile ; goods^ houses^ and 
domair^s under sequestration. So much 
the better. 

IV. 

Uesus admired Homo. We admire 
that which is akin to us. This is a 
law. 

To he always furious without out- 
burst, this was the internal condition 
of Hrsus ; grumbling was his external 
condition. IJrsus was the malcontent 
of creation. He was, in Nature, the 
one that gives rise to opposition. He 
took the universe in bad part. He 
gave no certificate of well-doing to any 
person or any thing. Making honey 
did not absolve the bee from stinging ; 
a full-blown rose did not excuse the 
sun for the yellow fever and the blacls: 
vomit. It is probable that within 
himself Ursus often criticised the 
Deity. He said: “Evidently, the 
devil is set on springs, and the mis- 
take of God is in having pulled the 
trigger.” He scarcely approved any 


12 


FEELIMINAEY CHAPTEES. 


one but princes, and be had his own 
peculiar manner of applauding them. 
One day, when James II. presented a 
massive golden lamp to the Virgin of 
a Catholic chapel in Ireland, Ursus, 
who was passing by with Homo, more 
indifferent than he, broke forth into 
admiration before all the people, and 
exclaimed : “ It is certain that the 
holy Virgin has much more need of a 
golden lamp, than these little bare- 
footed children have of shoes.” 

Such proofs of his devotion, and the 
evidence of his respect for the estab- 
lished powers, contributed probably 
not a little to making the magistrates 
tolerate his vagabond existence and his 
misalliance with a wolf. Sometimes, 
in the evening, from a feeling of friend- 
ly weakness, he allowed Homo to 
stretch his limbs a little and wander at 
liberty around the cart. 

The wolf was incapable of an abuse 
of confidence, and bore himself in so- 
ciety, that is to say among men, with 
the discretion of a poodle-dog. How- 
ever, if they had had to do with ill- 
tempered constables, this might have 
given rise to inconvenience ; therefore 
Ursus kept, so far as was possible, the 
honest wolf chained up. In a political 
point of view, his label about the gold, 
having become undecipherable and be- 
ing otherwise scarcely intelligible, was 
nothing else than a daub upon the 
facade, and did not denounce him. 
Even after James II., and under the 
“respectable” reign of William and 
Mary, the little county-towns of Eng- 
land could see his cart prowling round 
about in peace. He travelled, without 
hinderance, from one end of Great Brit- 
ain to the other, retailing his philters 
and his phials, enacting, in partnership 
with his wolf, his ambulant-doctor 
mummeries ; and lie passed with ease 
through the lueshes of the nets spread 
by the police of that epoch all over 
England, for picking clean the migra- 


tory tribes, and specially for arresting 
the CompracMcos on their way. 

And this was just. Ursus was of no 
tribe. Ursus lived witli Ursus ; tete-d- 
tete of himself with himself, into which a 
wolf poked his muzzle. The ambition of 
Ursus might have been to be a Oarib ; 
this unattainable, he was the personifi- 
cation of solitude. The recluse is a mod- 
ified savage, accepted by civilization. 
The more one wanders, the more one 
is alone. Thence his perpetual shifting 
from place to place. To remain any- 
where seemed to him the being tamed. 
He passed his life in passing on his way. 
The sight of towns redoubled in him 
his preference of brushwood, thickets, 
thorns, and holes in rocks. His home 
was the forest. He did not find him- 
self much out of his element amid the 
hubbub of public places, which suffi- 
ciently resembles the murmur of trees. 
A crowd satisfies to some extent one’s 
craving for the desert. That which 
worried him in bis crib was that it had 
a door and windows, and looked like a 
house. He would have attained his 
ideal, if he could have put a cavern on 
four wheels, and travelled about in a 
cave. 

He did not smile, as we have said; 
but he laughed sometimes ; frequently 
even. It was a bitter laugh. There 
is something of content in the smile, 
whilst the laugh is often a refusal. 

His grand business was to hate the 
human race. He was implacable in 
this hate. Having come to a definite 
conclusion that human life is a hideous 
affair, having remarked the superimpo- 
sition of plagues — ^kings upon peoples, 
war upon kings, pestilence upon w^ar, 
famine upon pestilence, stupidity upon 
every thing — ^having recognized a cer- 
tain amount of chastisement in the 
mere fact of existence, having estab- 
lished that death is a deliverance, 
when they brought to him a sick man, 
he cured liim. He had cordials and 


THE COMPEACHICOS. 


13 


beverages for prolonging tbe life of old 
persons. He set up on their feet crip- 
ples squatting in a wooden bowl, and 
threw at them this sarcasm : “ There 
you are, upon your pins ; may you walk 
for many a day, through the valley of 
tears ! ” "When he saw a poor fellow 
dying of hunger, he gave him all the 
farthings he had about him, while 
growling out : “Live, miserable wretch ! 
eat ! last a long time yet ! I am not the 
man to abridge your term in the con- 
vict prison!” After this, he rubbed 
his hands, and said : “I do men all the 
harm I can.” 

Passers-by, looking through the hole 
in the back window, could read on the 
roof of the crib this sign, written in- 
side, but visible from without, and 
charcoaled in large letters: “Uesus, 
Philosopher.” 

II.— THE COMPEACHICOS. 

I. 

Who is acquainted at this day with 
the word CompracMcos^ and who knows 
w'hat it means ? 

The CompracMcos, or Gomprapeque- 
1108^ were a hideous and strange noma- 
dic affiliation, famous in the seven- 
teenth century, forgotten in the eigh- 
teenth, unknown in our time. The 
Comprachicos are, like the “ succession 
powder,” an ancient and characteristic 
social mark. They form a part of the 
old human squalor. For the sweeping 
glance of history, which brings all into 
one view, the Comprachicos belong to 
the immense fact, slavery. Joseph, 
sold by his brethren, is a chapter of 
their story. The Comprachicos have 
left a trace in the penal legislations of 
Spain and of England. You find here 
and there, in the dark confusion of 
English laws, the pressure of this mon- 
strous reality, as you find the footprint 
of the savage in a forest. 

Comprachicos, as also Comprapeque- 


hos, is a compound Spanish word, which 
means the buyers of little ones. 

The Comprachicos drove a traffic in 
children. 

They bought them, and they sold 
them. 

They did not steal them. Stealing 
children is another trade. 

And what did they make of these 
children ? 

Monsters. 

Why monsters ? 

For laughter’s sake. 

The people are bound to laugh ; the 
rocks also. There must be the merry- 
andrew for the public cross-ways ; 
there must be the buffoon for Louvres. 
The one is called Turlupin, the other 
Triboulet. 

The efforts of man to procure him- 
self distraction are sometimes worthy 
of the philosopher’s attention. 

What are we sketching in these few 
preliminary pages? — a chapter of the 
most tei7’ible of books, of the book that 
might be entitled. The Utilization of 
the Unfortunate 'by the Fortunate. 

A CHILD destined to be a plaything 
for men — that has existed. (It exists 
still in this day.) At epochs artless 
and ferocious, this constitutes a special 
pursuit. The seventeenth century, 
called the great century, was one of 
these epochs. . It was an age decidedly 
Byzantine; it was marked by a cor- 
rupted ingenuousness and a delicate 
ferocity, a curious variety of civiliza- 
tion. A tiger making pretty faces. 
Madame de S 4 vign 4 mincing, d propos 
of the stake and the wheel. This cen- 
tury did much in working-up children. 
Historians, flatterers of the period, 
have hidden the sore; but they have 
let us see the remedy — Yincent do 
Paul. 

That the human rattle may succeed, 
it must be taken early in hand. The 


14 


PEELIMINAEY CHAPTEES. 


dwarf ought to be little when be be- 
gins. They played on infancy. But a 
'well-made infant is not very amusing. 
A buncbback is more gay. 

Tbence an art. There were bring- 
ers-up. They took a man, and they 
made an abortion; they took a face, 
and they made a snout. They bent 
down growth ; they kneaded physiog- 
nomy. This artificial production of 
monstrosities bad its rules. It was al- 
together a science. Let an orthope- 
dist he imagined in the inverse sense. 
There, where God had placed vision, 
this art placed strabismus. There, 
where God has put harmony, they put 
deformity. There, where God has 
put perfection, they reestablished the 
rough draft. And, in the eyes of con- 
noisseurs, it was the rough draft that 
was perfect. There were equally tam- 
perings with' his work for animals. 
Piebald h orses were invented. T urenne 
rode a piebald. Do we not, in our 
day, paint dogs in blue and in green ? 
Nature is our canvas. Man has al- 
ways desired to add something to God. 
Man retouches the creation, sometimes 
for good, sometimes for evil. The 
court buflPoon was nothing else than an 
attempt to bring hack man to the ape. 
Progress to the rear. Masterpieces 
going backward. At the same time, 
they tried to make the ape man. 
Barhe, Duchess of Cleveland and 
Countess of Southampton, had a mon- 
key for her page. In the household 
of Frances Sutton, Baroness Dudley, 
eighth peeress on the barons’ bench, 
tea was handed by a baboon dressed in 
gold brocade, that Lady Dudley called 
her negro. Catherine Sidley, Countess 
of Dorchester, went to a sitting of 
Parliament in a carriage bearing her 
coat-of-arms, behind which stood up, 
their muzzles in the air, three mon- 
keys, in full livery. A Duchess of Me- 
dina-Coeli, whose levee was attended 
by a Cardinal, had her stockings put 


on by an orang-outang. These ba- 
boons, thus promoted, were a counter- 
weight against brutalized and bestial- 
ized men. This promiscuousness be- 
tween man and beast, willed by the 
great, was especially called into action 
through the dwarf and the dog. The 
dwarf never quitted the dog, that was 
always bigger than himself. The dog 
w^as the dwarf's pet. They were like 
two coupled links in a necklace. This 
juxtaposition is proved by a host of 
domestic monuments, notably by the 
portrait of Jeffroy Hudson, dwarf of 
Henriette of France, the daughter of 
Henry IV., the wife of Charles I. 

To degrade man is equally to deform 
him. The suppression of his natural 
state was completed by disfiguring 
him. Certain vivisectors of those 
times had great success in effacing the 
divine stamp from the human counte- 
nance. Doctor Conquest, a member 
of the College in Amen Street, and a 
sworn inspector of the chemists’ shops 
in London, has written a book in 
Latin on this perverted surgery, of 
which he gives the proceedings. If we 
may believe Jusens Carrick -Fergus, 
the inventor of this surgery was a 
monk named Aven-more, an Irish word 
that signifies great river. 

The dwarf of the Elector Palatine, 
Perke, whose doll — or the ghost of it 
— jumps out of a box in the cavern of 
Heidelberg, was a remarkable illustra- 
tion of this science, so varied in its ap- 
plications. 

Thus were beings made, whose law 
of existence was monstrously simple : 
permission to suffer, order to be amus- 
ing. 

in. 

This fabrication of monsters was 
practised on a large scale, and com- 
prised divers sorts. 

There must be some for the Sultan ; 
there must be some for the Pope. For 


THE COMPEACHICOS. 


15 


the one, to help him guard his wives; 
for the other, to make his prayers. It 
was a style apart, unable to reproduce 
itself. These approaches to humanity 
were useful to voluptuousness and to 
religion. The seraglio and the Sistine 
Cliapel put into requisition the same 
kind of monsters, here ferocious, there 
gentle. 

They knew how, in those times, to 
produce things that aie no more pro- 
duced now ; they had talents that we 
lack, and it is not without cause that 
smart fellows complain of our falling- 
off. Sculpture no longer knows how 
to work upon plain human flesh. This 
is because the art of corporal punish- 
ment is being lost. There were virtu- 
osi in this brancli ; there are none now. 
The art has been simplifled to such a 
point, that it will, perhaps, soon disap- 
pear entirely. In cutting off the limbs 
of living men, in opening their bellies, 
in taking out their bowels, one lighted 
on phenomena, one had his godsends ; 
we must give that up, and we are de- 
prived of the progress that the execu- 
tioner was making in surgery. 

This vivisection of other days was not 
limited to perfecting phenomena for the 
public resort, buffoons for the palace — 
a species of improvement upon the cour- 
tier — and eunuchs for sultans and 
popes. It abounded in vari^jfljj^. One 
of its triumphs was the mdKSf a cock 
for the King of England. 

It was the custom, in the English 
king’s palace, that there should be a 
sort of nocturnal man, who could crow 
iik’e a cock. This watcher, up while 
others slept, prowled round the palace, 
and uttered, from hour to hour, this 
cry of the poultry-yard, repeated as 
often as was needed for supplying the 
place of a clock. This man, promoted 
to be a cock, had for this purpose un- 
dergone, in childhood, an operation on 
the pharynx, which was a portion of 
the art described by Dr. Conquest. 


Under Charles II., the salivation re- 
sulting from the operation having dis- 
gusted the Duchess of Portsmouth, the 
office was kept up, so as not to diminish 
the lustre of the crown, but a man not 
mutilated was made to do the crowing. 
For this employment a veteran officer 
was usually selected. Under James II., 
this functionary called himself William 
Sampson Cock, and received annually, 
for his crowing, nine pounds two shil- 
lings and sixpence.* 

Scarcely a hundred years ago, as the 
memoirs of Catherine II. teU us, when 
the Czar or Czarina was displeased 
with any Kussian prince, the prince was 
made to cower down in the grand ante- 
chamber of the palace, and remained in 
this posture an appointed number of 
days, mewing, by order, like a cat, or 
clucking like a hen that is sitting, and 
pecking at his food on the floor. 

These modes are out of fashion — ^less, 
however, tlian one supposes. To-day, 
the courijf ers, who cluck to please, mod- 
ify a little their intonation. More than 
one picks up from the ground — we do 
not say from the mud — what he eats. 

It is very fortunate that kings cannot 
deceive themselves. In this way their 
contradictions never embarrass them. 
Approving unceasingly, one is sure to 
be always right — ^which is 3)leas^nt. 
Louis XIV. would not have liked to see • 
at Versailles either an officer playing 
the cock, or a prince playing the tur- 
key. What enhanced the royal and 
imperial dignity in England and in Eus- 
sia would have seemed to Louis the 
Great incompatible with the crown of 
St. Louis. His annoyance is well known 
when Madame Henriette, one night, so 
far forgot herself as to see a hen in a 
dream, in fact a grave breach of eti- 
quette for a person of the court. When 
one belongs to the lofty, one ought not 
to dream of the lowly. Bossuet, it will 

* See Dr, Chamberlayne’s “ Present Condition 
of England,” 1688, Ist part, chap, xiii,, p. 179. 


16 


PEELIMINAKY CHAPTEES. 


be remembered, like Louis XIV., 
thought it scandalous. 

lY. 

The trade in children, during the 
seventeenth centuiy, was made com- 
plete, as we have just explained, by a 
craft. The Oomprachic^s followed this 
trade and practised this craft. They 
bought children, worked up a little this 
first material, and presently sold it 
again. 

The sellers were of every kind, from 
the miserable father getting rid of his 
family, to the master utilizing his stud 
of slaves. Selling men was a very sim- 
ple affair. In our day, one is punished 
for maintaining this right. It may be 
remembered that, less than a century 
ago, the Elector of Hesse sold his sub- 
jects to the King of England, who 
wanted men for killing in America. 
They went to the Elector of Hesse as 
to a butcher to buy meat. The Elector 
of Hesse kept gun-flesh. This prince 
hung up his subjects on nails in his 
shop. Bargain! they are for sale. In 
■* England, under Jeffreys, after the tra- 
gical adventure of Monmouth, many a 
\ lord and gentleman was decapitated 
and quartered. These victims left 
wives and daughters — widows and or- 
phans, whom James II. presented to 
the queCih his wife. The queen sold 
these ladies to William Penn. It is 
probable that this king had discount 
allowed him, and so much per cent. 
What is surprising is, not that James 
II. should have sold these women, but 
that William Penn should have bought 
them. 

The bargain by Penn is excused or 
explained herein, that Penn, having a 
desert to sow with men, had need of 
women. The women were a part of 
his implements. 

These ladies were a good thing for 
her gracious majesty the queen. The 
young ones brought a high price. One 


has the uncomfortable sense of a com- 
plicated scandal, in reflecting that Penn 
probably got the old duchesses very 
cheap. 

The Comprachicos were called also 
the GTieylas^ a Hindoo word that signi- 
fies the spoilers of child-nests. 

For a long period, the Comprachicos 
only half hid themselves. There is, 
sometimes, in the social arrangement, a 
penumbra, not unfavorable to nefari- 
ous crafts ; they keep themselves alive 
therein. We have witnessed in our 
day, in Spain, an affiliation of this sort, 
directed by the bandit Eamon Selles, 
last from 1834 to 1866, and keep for 
thirty years three provinces in a state 
of alarm, Valencia, Alicante, and Mur- 
cia. 

Tinder the Stuarts, the Comprachicos 
were not in bad odor at court. At 
need, state-craft made use of them. 
They were, for James II., almost an 
instrumentum regni. It was the epoch 
when cumbersome and refractory fami- 
lies were thinned off, when dependants 
were cut short, when heirs were ab- 
ruptly suppressed. Sometimes one 
branch was defrauded for the benefit 
of another. The Comprachicos had one 
talent — ^that for disfiguring — which rec- 
ommended them politically. To dis- 
figure is more advantageous than to 
kill. Th^ti was, in truth, the iron 
mask, biW^lit was an awkward weap- 
on. Cne can’t people Europe with 
iron masks, whilst deformed mounte- 
banks haunt the streets quite naturally. 
Besides, the mask of iron can be 
snatched off, and the masks of flesh 
cannot. Masking you forever with 
your own countenance — nothing is 
more ingenious. The Comprachicos 
worked up man as the Chinese work up 
a tree. They had secrets, as we have 
said; they had special dodges. This is 
a lost art. A certain fantastic stunting 
came from their hands. It was pre- 
posterous, but deep-set. Tliey touched 


THE COMPKACniCOS. 


17 


up a little being with so much tact that 
its father would not recognize it. Et 
que meconnaitrait I’oeil meme de son 
pere, says Kacine, with an error in his 
French. Sometimes they left the dorsal 
column straight, but they remade the 
face. They took the mark out of a 
child as one takes the mark out of a 
handkerchief. The progeny intended 
for jugglers liad their joints dislocated 
in a scientific way. They might be 
said to be boned. This made gymnasts. 

Not only did they take away from 
the child his countenance; they also 
deprived him of his memory. At least 
they took away all they could. The 
child was unconscious of the mutilation 
that ho had undergone. This fearful sur- 
gery left a trace upon his face, not in 
his mind. At the best he could but re- 
member that, one day, he had been 
seized by certain men, that he had gone 
to sleep, and that then he had been 
cured. Cured of what? — he did not 
know. Burnings with sulphur and in- 
cisions by steel — he could recall nothing. 
Tlie Comprachicos, during the opera- 
tion, deadened the little patient by 
means of a stupefying powder that 
passed for magical, and that suppressed 
pain. This powder has been always 
known in China, and is used there to 
this day. China has had, before us, all 
our inventions — printing, M^hery, ae- 
rostation, chloroform. Or|P^he dis- 
covery, that in Europe springs at once 
into life and growth, remains in embryo 
in China, and though preserved is dead. 
• China is a glass bottle for a foetus. 

As we are in China, let us stay there 
a moment, for certain details. In Chi- 
na, from time immemorial, ingenuity 
and handicraft have been applied to this 
matter: namely, the moulding of the 
living man. They take a child of two 
or three years old, and put it into a por- 
celain vase, more or less quaint, but 
without lid or bottom, so that the head 
and the feet are exposed. In the day- 


time the vase is kept upright ; at night 
it is lain on its side, so that the child 
may sleep. Thus the child grows bigger 
without growing taller, filling up the 
embossments of the vase with its com- 
pressed flesh and twisted bones. This 
growth in the jjottle lasts for several 
years. At a giveii period it is without 
remedy. "When it is decided that the 
mould has taken, and that the monster 
is made, they break the vase, the child 
comes out from it, and they have a man 
with the form of a pot. 

It is convenient ; one can order one’s 
dwarf beforehand, of any desired shape. 

V. 

James II. tolerated the Comprachi- 
cos ; and for good reason — he made use 
of them. At least this happened to 
him more than once. One does not al- 
ways disdain what one despises. Such 
lower calling, excellent expedient some- 
times for the higher calling that is 
termed | politics, was voluntarily left 
miserable, but was not persecuted. No 
superintendence, but a certain attention. 
It might be useful. The law shut one 
eye ; the king opened another. 

Sometimes the king went so far as to 
avow his complicity. Such is the ef- 
frontery of monarchical terrorism. The 
disfigured object was Jleur-de-lysed ; 
the mark of God was removed, and the 
mark of the king put on. Jacob Ast- 
ley, knight and baronet, lord of the ma- 
nor of Melton, constable of the county 
of Norfolk, had in his family a child 
that had been sold, on whoso forehead 
the vendue-master had imprinted, with 
a hot iron, a Jleur-de-lys. In certain 
cases, if it were desirable from any 
cause to establish the royal origin of 
the child’s newly-made condition, this 
method was employed. England has 
always done us the honor to utilize, for 
personal objects, i\\Q fleur-de-lys. 

The Comprachicos — with the distinc- 
tion that separates a calling from fanat- 


18 


PEELIMINAKY CHAPTEES. 


icism — were analogous to the Thugs of 
India ; they lived apart by themselves, 
in bands, with a dash of the mounte- 
bank, but for pretext. Moving about 
was thus easier for them. They camped 
here and there, but grave, religious, 
and — differing herein ^rom all other 
nomads — incapable of theft. People 
have for a long time erroneously con- 
founded them with the morris-dancers 
of Spain and the morris-dancers of 
China. The Spanish morris-dancers 
were coiners of false money ; the Chi- 
nese morris-dancers were sharpers. 
ISTothing of this sort with the Compra- 
chicos. They were honest folk. One 
may think what one pleases of them, they 
were sometimes sincerely scrupulous. 
They pushed open a door, went in, bar- 
gained for a child, paid, and carried it 
off. This was done with all preciseness. 

They were of all countries. Under 
this name, Comprachicos, Englishmen, 
Frenchmen, Castilians, Germans, and 
Italians, fraternized. One same thought, 
one same superstition, the following out 
the same trade in common, bring about 
these fusions. In this fraternity of vaga- 
bonds, Levantines represented the East, 
and seamen of the western coast of 
France represented the West. Many a 
Basque therein held dialogue with many 
an Irishman. The Basques and the 
Irish understand each other; they speak 
the same Punic jargon. Add to this 
the intimate relations of Catholic Ire- 
land with Catholic Spain. Such rela- 
tions ended in the hanging at London 
of a quasi-king of Ireland, the Welsh 
lord of Brany, which brought about the 
earldom of Leitrim. 

The Comprachicos were rather an 
association than a tribe, rather a resi- 
due than an association. It was all 
the beggardom of the universe, having 
a crime for a calling. It was a sort of 
harlequin people, made up of aU man- 
ner of rags. To take a man into it was 
to patch up a tatter. 


To wander was the law of the Com- 
prachicos’ existence. To appear; then 
to disappear. He who is only tolerated 
takes no root. Even in kingdoms where 
their craft was a court purveyor, and, 
at need, an auxiliary of the royal power, 
they were at times and all at once treat- 
ed harshly. Kings made use of their 
art, and sent the artists to the galleys. 
These inconsistencies are in the come- 
and-go of royal caprice. Such is our 
good pleasure. 

Bolling stone and wandering indus- 
try gather no moss. The Comprachicos 
were poor. They might have said 
what the lean and tattered sorceress 
said, when she saw the torch lighted 
at the stake, “ The game is not worth 
the candle.” Possibly, probably even, 
their chiefs, remaining in the back- 
ground, the wholesale adventurers in 
the trade in children, were rich. This 
point, after two centuries, it would be 
difficult to clear up. 

It was, we have said, an affiliation. 
It had its laws, its oath, its formulas. 
It had almost its cabal. Whoever de- 
sires to learn much to-day concerning 
the Comprachicos, has only to go into 
Biscay and into Galicia. As there were 
many Basques among them, it is in 
these mountains that their legends re- 
main. They still talk of the Com- 
prachico^j^his very hour at Oyazzun, 
at Urbisti^fc, at Leso, at Astigarraga. 
Agudrdate^ nino, que toy d llamar al 
comprachicos!^ is still in that district 
the intimidating cry of mothers to their 
children. 

The Comprachicos, like the Tchi- 
ganes and the gypsies, appointed meet- 
ings among themselves; from time to 
time their chiefs exchanged colloquies. 
There were, in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, four principal points of gathering. 
One was in Spain, the defile of Pan- 
corbo ; one in Germany, the glade 

* “ Take care, child, I am going to call the 
Comprachico ! ” 


THE COMPKACHICOS. 


19 


called the Bad Woman, near Dickirscli, 
where there are two enigmatical bas- 
reliefs, representing a woman who has 
a head, and a man who has none ; one 
in France, the hiUock whereon was the 
colossal statue Massue-la-Promesse^ in 
the ancient sacred wood Borvo Tomo- 
na, near Bourbonne-les-Bains ; one in 
England, behind the garden-wall of 
William Ohaloner, Esquire, of Gisbor- 
ough, at Cleveland, in Yorkshire, be- 
tween the square tower and the main 
gable, pierced with an ogive door. 

The laws against vagrants have al- 
ways been very rigorous in England. 
England, in her Gothic legislation, 
seemed to inspire herself with tliis prin- 
ciple : Homo erram fera errante pejor. 
One of her special statutes describes the 
man without a home as “more dan- 
gerous than the asp, the dragon, the 
l^Tix, and the basilisk ” {atrocior aspide, 
dmconOy lynce^ et l)asiUco). England 
had for a long time the same solicitude 
about gypsies, of whom she desired to 
be rid, as about wolves, which she had 
swept away. 

The English law, nevertheless, in the 
same way as it tolerated, as we have 
seen, the tamed and domesticated wolf, 
become in some sort a dog, tolerated 
the vagabond, by profession, become a 
subject. They did not trouble the 
mountebank, nor the travelling barber, 
nor the physician, nor thl^^edlar, nor 
the out-of-doors man of science, seeing 
that these had a trade for their liveli- 
hood. Beyond this, and with very few 
exceptions, the sort of free man that 
there is in the wandering man gave 
disquietude to the law. A passer-by 
was a possible public enemy. That 
modern invention, sauntering, was un- 
known ; all that was known was the 
old action, prowling round. The “bad 
look,” that indescribable something 
that aU the world* comprehends and 
what nobody can define, sufficed for 
aoeiety’s taking a man by the collar. 


“ Where do you live ? ” “ What do you 
do?” And, if ho could not answer, 
rude penalties awaited him. Steel and 
fire were in the code. The law practised 
the cauterization of vagabondism. 

Thence, throughout the English ter- 
ritory, a true “law for suspected per- 
sons,” applied to trampers — willingly 
evil-doers, let us say — and especially to 
gypsies, whose expulsion has been er- 
roneously compared to the expulsion 
of the Jews and the Moors from Spain, 
and of the Protestants from France. 
As for us, we do not confound a battue 
with a persecution. 

The Oompraohicos, let us insist upon 
it, had nothing in common with the 
gypsies. The gypsies Tvere a nation; 
the Oomprachicos were a compound of 
all nations; a residue, we have. said; a 
horrible wash-hand basin of impure 
waters. The Oomprachicos had not, 
like the gypsies, an idiom of their own ; 
their jargon was a jumble of idioms; 
all languages intermingled made up 
their language ; they spoke a gibberisli. 
They had finished by being, as well as 
the gypsies, a people winding its way 
among peoples ; but their .common bond 
was affiliation, not race. At all the 
epochs of history, one can distinguish, 
in this vast liquid mass, that which is 
humanity, from the sluices of venomous 
men fi owing apart, with something of 
poison all about them. The gypsies 
were a family ; the Oomprachicos were 
a freemasonry — a masonry having not 
a noble aim, but a hideous pursuit. 
Last point of difference, religion. The 
gypsies were pagans ; the Oomprachicos 
were Ohristians — and even good Ohris- 
tians, as becomes an association which, 
albeit compounded of all peoples, had ta- 
ken its rise in Spain, a devout locality. 

They were more than Ohristians, 
they were Oatholics , they were more 
than Oatholics, they were Romans; 
and so distrustful in their faith and so 
pure, that they refused to unite with 


20 PEELIMINAEY CHAPTEES. 


the Hungarian nomads of the comitat 
of Pesth, commanded and conducted by 
an old man who had for his sceptre a 
staff with a silver top, surmounted by 
the double-headed eagle of Austria. It 
is true that these Hungarians were 
schismatics to such a degree as to cele- 
brate the Assumption on the 27th of 
August, which is an abomination. 

In England, so long as the Stuarts 
reigned, the association of the Oom- 
prachicos was — we have let the motive 
be understood — almost patronized. 
James II., a devout man, who persecuted 
the Jews, and hunted down the gypsies, 
was a good prince for the Comprachicos. 
You have seen wherefore. . The Com- 
prachicos were buyers of the human 
commodity, in which the king was a 
dealer. The good of the state de- 
manded an occasional disappearance. 
A troublesome heir, at an early age, 
whom they took and manipulated, lost 
his form. This made confiscations 
easy ; the transfer of lordships to favor- 
ites was facilitated thereby. The Com- 
prachicos were extremely discreet and 
very taciturn ; they pledged themselves 
to silence, and kept their word, which 
is essential in state affairs. There was 
scarcely an instance of their having be- 
trayed the king’s secrets. This, it is 
true, was their own interest. And, if 
tlie king had lost confidence in them, 
they would have been greatly in dan- 
ger. They were, therefore, a resource, 
in the political point of view. Be- 
sides, these artists supplied the Holy 
Father with singers. The Comprachi- 
cos were useful for Allegri’s Miserere. 
They were particular devotees to Ma- 
ry. AH this was acceptable to the 
papism of the Stuarts. James II. could 
not be hostile to religious men, who 
pushed their devotion to the Virgin so 
far as to manufacture eunuchs. In 
1688, there was a change of dynasty in 
England^ Orange supplanted Stuart. 

J ames II. went to die in exile, where 


miracles were wrought over his tomb, 
and where his relics cured the Bishop 
of Autun of a fistula — worthy recom- 
pense of this prince’s Christian virtues. 

■William, not having the same views 
or the same practices as James, was 
severe with the Comprachicos. He set 
about crushing out these vermin with 
hearty good-will. 

A statute of the early period of Wil- 
liam and Mary hit hard this association 
of child-buyers. It was a terrible 
blow for the Comprachicos, henceforth 
ground to powder. By the terms of 
this statute, the men of this association, 
taken and duly convicted, were to be 
branded upon the shoulder with a hot 
iron imprinting an E, which stands for 
rogue, that is to say, beggar ; upon the 
left hand a T, standing for thief, that is 
to say, robber ; and upon the right hand 
an M, signifying man-slayer, that is to 
say, murderer. The chiefs, “ presumed 
to be rich, though of beggarly aspect,” 
were to be punished by the eolUstrigium., 
which is the pillory, and marked on the 
forehead with a P, besides having their 
possessions confiscated, and the trees 
of their woods rooted up. Those who 
failed to denounce the Comprachicos 
were to be punished by confiscation and 
perpetual imprisonment, as for the 
crime of misprision. As for the women 
found among these men, they w’-ere to 
undergo thfe “cucking-stool,” which is 
a trap, the name of which, composed 
of the French word coquine and the 
German word stuM., has an indecent 
signification. English law being gifted 
with a strange longevity, this punish- 
ment still stands on record for “ quar- 
relsome women.” The cucking-stool 
is suspended over a river or pond ; the 
culprit is seated thereon, and is 
then allowed to tumble into the water ; 
then she is drawn out ; and this duck- 
ing of the woman is recommenced 
three times, “to refresh her anger,” 
says the commentator Chamberlayne. 





y 



PART I. 

# 

SEA AND NIGHT 




% 


I 




t 




4. 




J 


I 



I 







PART FIRST 




"J/KUT 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


BOOK I. 

NIGI12 LESS DARK THAN MAN. 

I. 

THE SOUTH POINT OP POETLAND. 

An obstinate north wind blew with- 
out intermission over the continent of 
Europe, and with special violence over 
England, during all the month of De- 
cember, 1689, and all the month of 
January, 1690. Hence the destructive 
cold which caused this winter to be 
noted as one “ to be remembered by the 
poor,” on the margins of the old Bible 
in the Non- Jurors’ Chapel of London. 
Thanks to the useful solidity of the old 
royal parchment employed in the official 
registers, long lists of poor, found dead 
of hunger and want of clothing, may 
still be read to-day in many local re- 
positories, particularly in the archives 
of Clink Liberty Court, in Southwark 
Borough, of the Pie-Powder {pieds 
poiidreux^ “ dusty-foot ” ) Court, and 
of Whitechapel Court, held at the vil- 
lage of Stepney by the seigniorial bailiff. 
The Thames was. frozen over, which 
happens only once in a century, as ice 
forms on it with difficulty, owing to the 
agitation of the water. Carts rolled on 
the frozen river ; there was a fair on 
the Thames, with bear-baitings and 
bull-baitings ; an ox was ‘toasted whole 
on the ' ^ ' i thick ice lasted two 


months. The doleful year 1690 sur- 
passed in severity even the celebrated 
winters at the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century, so minutely observed 
by Doctor Gideon Delaun, who was 
honored by the city of London with 
a bust on a bracket, in his quality of 
apothecary to King James I. 

One evening, toward the close of one 
of the coldest days in this month of 
January, 1690, there was going on in 
one of the many inhospitable creeks of 
Portland Gulf something unusual, which 
caused the seamews and wild-geese to 
scream and circle around the entrance 
of the creek, afraid to reenter it. 

In this creek, the most dangerous, 
during the prevalence of certain winds, 
of all those running in to the gulf, and 
consequently the least frequented, con- 
venient, by reason of this very danger, 
for ships that seek concealment, a little 
vessel, almost touching the cliff, thanks 
to the depth of the water, was moored 
to a point of rock. It is wrong to say 
nigJit-falls ; we ought to say night- 
rises., for darkness begins from the earth. 
It was already night at the bottom of 
the cliff ; it was still day above. Had 
any one approached the moored vessel he 
would have recognized a Biscayan ork. 

The sun, hidden all day by the mist, 
had just set. Men began to feel that 
dark and deep grief which may be 
called anxiety for the absent sun. 


22 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


As the wind did not come from the 
sea, the water of the creek was calm. 

It was a lucky exception, especially 
in v/inter. hTearly all these Portland 
creeks have bars. In bad weather there 
is a high sea .on the bar, and much skill 
and practice are required to pass it 
safely. These little harbors, more ap- 
parent than real, perform their function 
badly. It is fearful to enter them and 
terrible to leave them. That evening, 
for a wonder, no danger. 

The Biscayan ork is an old species of 
lighter, now gone out of fashion. These 
orks, which did good service, even in 
war-navies, were stout hulls, barks in 
size, ships in strength. There were 
orks in the Armada; true, the war- 
orks reached a heavy tonnage, thus the 
flag-ship Grand Griffon^ commanded by 
Lope de Medina, was a vessel of six 
hundred and fifty tons, mounting forty 
cannon; but the merchant and smug- 
gling ork was on a very small pattern. 
Seamen considered this kind of lighter 
a petty vessel. The cordage of the ork 
was made of hempen strands, some 
ropes having a heart of iron wire, which 
shows a probable, though unscientific, 
design of obtaining indications in case 
of magnetic tension. The delicacy of 
this rigging did not exclude large work- 
ing cables, the cdbrias of the Spanish 
galleys and the cameli of the Koman 
triremes. The tiUer was very long, 
which construction has the advantage of 
great leverage, but the disadvantage of 
small play ; two sheaves on sheave-holes 
at the end of the tiller corrected this de- 
fect, and somev/hat made up for the loss 
of force. The compass was weU housed 
in a binnacle perfectly square, and well 
balanced by its two copper frames 
placed one within the other horizon- 
tally on little pivots, just as in a Cardan 
lamp. There was knowledge and 
cleverness in the construction of the 
whole ork, but it was ignorant sci- 
ence and barbarous cleverness. The 


ork was as primitive as the Dutch 
praam and the Indian canoe, having the 
former’s solidity and the latter’s speed, 
and possessing, like all vessels born of 
the fishing and piratical instinct, won- 
derful sea-going qualities. It was equal- 
ly good for close and open waters; 
the play of its sails, complicated with 
stays and very peculiar, allowed it to 
beat well in the enclosed bays of As- 
turia, which are almost basins, passages 
for instance, and to run with a free 
wind on the open sea ; queer ships of 
all work were they, good for a stagnant 
pool, good for an ocean-storm. The 
ork was among ships what the water- 
wagtail is among birds, one of the 
smallest and one of the boldest; the 
wagtail scarcely bends the reed on 
which it perches, yet traverses the 
ocean in its flight. 

The Biscayan orks, even the poorest, 
were gilt and painted. This tattooing 
is in accordance with the genius of a 
people, charming, but the least bit 
savage. The magnificent motley of 
their mountains, checkered with snows 
and meadows, has taught them the 
stern prestige of ornament at any price. 
They are poor and grand; they put 
coats-of-arms on their hovels ; they 
have big asses which they trick out 
with bells, and big oxen which they 
deck with feathers ; their carts, whose 
wheels you may hear creaking two 
leagues off, are bepainted, carved, be- 
ribboned. Your cobbler has a bas-relief 
over his door; Saint Crispin and an old 
shoe, but it’s stone. They trim their 
leather jackets with gold lace; they 
don’t mend a tatter, but they embroider 
it. Such is the depth and pride of their 
gayety. Like the Greeks, the Basques 
are children of the sun. "While the 
Yalencian shelters his sad nudity under 
a covering of red wool, with a hole for 
his head to go through, the Galicians 
and Biscayans rejoice in fair linen 
shirts, bleached in the dew. Their 


THE SOUTH POINT OF POETLAND. 


23 


door-steps and windows overflow with 
fresh, blond faces, laughing under gar- 
lands of maize. A jovial and proud se- 
renity is conspicuous in their simple 
arts, in their manufactures, in their 
customs, in the dress of their girls, in 
their songs. Those colossal ruins, the 
mountains, become masses of light in 
Biscay ; the sunshine circulates through 
all their gaps. The savage Jaizquivel 
is full of idyls. Biscay is the embodied 
grace of the Pyrenees, as Savoy is of 
the Alps. In the perilous bays adjoin- 
ing Saint Sebastian, Leso, and IFontara- 
bia, you have tempest and cloud, foam 
spirting above the capes, rage of wave 
and wind, horror, confusion, and boat- 
women crowned with roses. Whoever 
has seen the Basque country wishes to 
see it again. There is a blessing on the 
land. Two crops a-year, villages re- 
sounding with gayety, a lofty poverty, 
all Sunday long a noise of guitars and 
dances, castanets and love - making, 
houses clean and well lighted, storks in 
the steeples. 

Return we to Portland, that harsh 
mountain of the coast. 

The peninsula of Portland, in its geo- 
metrical projection, presents the appear- 
ance of a bird’s head, the bill turned 
toward the sea, and the back of the 
head toward Weymouth; the isthmus 
is the neck. 

Portland, to the gi’eat deterioration 
of its wild picturesqueness, has now a 
manufacturing existence. The Portland 
hills were discovered by quarry-men 
and plasterers about the middle of the 
eighteenth century. Since that time, 
tlie cement called Roman has been made 
with Portland rock, a utilization which 
enriches the country and disfigures the 
bay. Two hundred years ago, these 
coasts were cliffs in ruins, now they 
are quarries in ruins ; the pickaxe con- 
sumes on a small scale, the wave on a 
large; hence, a diminution of beauty. 
Han’s measured cutting has replaced 


the grand waste of ocean. This meas- 
ured cutting has annihilated the creek 
where the Biscayan ork was moored. 
To find any trace of this little harborage 
now demolished, one would have to 
look on the eastern side of the penin- 
sula, toward the point, beyond Polly 
Pier and Dirdle Pier, beyond Wakeham 
even, between the places called Church- 
Hope and Southwell. 

The creek, walled in on all sides by 
bluffs higher than it was wide, was 
every moment more encroached upon 
by the night ; the indistinct mist pecu- 
liar to twilight grew thicker in it ; it 
was like the spreading darkness at the 
bottom of a well ; the narrow channel, 
where the creek gave passage to the 
sea, marked a whitish cleft in this in- 
terior darkness where the wave wan- 
dered. One must have been quite close 
to perceive the ork moored to the 
rocks, and hidden as it were in the 
cloak of their great shadow. A plank 
thrown |ffom on board to a low, flat 
projection of the cliff, the only point 
where one could land, connected the 
bark with the shore; black figures were 
walking on this movable bridge, and 
crossing one another in the darkness ; 
people were embarking. 

It was less cold in the creek than at 
sea, thanks to the screen of rock that 
rose on the north of this basin ; but the 
difference was not sufficient to hinder 
these people from shivering. So they 
made haste. 

Twilight has the effect of bringing out 
figures as if they were stamped; cer- 
tain fringes in the dress of these people 
were visible, showing that they be- 
longed to the class called in England 
the ragged. 

Among the projections of the cliff 
a winding footpath was just distinguish- 
able. The girl who hangs her staylace 
over tie back of an arm-chair, and leaves 
it trading, sketches, without suspecting 
it, nearly all the foot-roads of cliffs and 


24 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


mountains. The path leading to this 
creek, full of knots and angles, almost 
perpendieular, fitter for goats than men, 
ended at the platform where the plank 
was. Cliff roads are generally of a 
steepness far from tempting; they pre- 
sent themselves like a fall rather than a 
way, they crumble under your feet ra- 
ther than lead you down. This, one, 
probably a branch of some road on the 
plain, was so perpendicular that it was 
unpleasant to look at. From below you 
saw it zigzag up to the high ledges of 
the cliff, whence it opened out upon 
the table-land over sundry clefts, and 
through a notch in the rock. By this 
path must have come the passengers, 
for whom this bark was waiting in this 
creek. 

Around the movement of embarkation 
in the_ creek, a movement evidently 
scared and unquiet, all was solitude. 
Not a step was heard, not a sound, not 
a breath. One could just perceive on 
the other side of the roadstead, at the 
entrance of Eingstead Bay, a flotilla of 
shark-fishers, which had clearly blun- 
dered in there. These polar vessels 
had been driven from the Danish waters 
into the English by the caprice of the 
deep. Northern gales play such tricks 
on fishermen. These men had just 
sought refuge in the anchorage of Port- 
land, and this fact was a presumable 
sign of bad weather and danger on the 
open sea. They were employed in 
casting anchor. The chief bark, placed 
on sentry, according to the old custom 
of Norwegian flotillas, marked all its 
rigging in black on the white level of 
the sea, and forward might be seen the 
great fishing-fork, that bore all sorts of 
hooks and harpoons, destined for the 
scymnus glaeialis^ the squalus acantTiias, 
and the squalus spinax niger^ as well as 
the net for catching the grand selacJie. 
Except these few vessels, all swept into 
the same corner, the eye recognized 
nothing that lived in the vast horizon 


of Portland. At this time the coast 
was uninhabited, and at this season the 
roadstead was uninhabitable. 

Whatever the aspect of the weather, 
the persons whom the Biscayan ork 
was to carry off, hurried their departure 
none the less for it. Tliey formed, on 
the border of the sea, a sort of group, 
busy and confused, rapid in their move- 
ments. It was difficult to distinguish 
one from the other, impossible to see 
if they were old or young. The indis- 
tinctness of evening mixed them up, 
like tlip 'figures in a rough sketch. A 
mask of shade was upon their faces. 
They were profiles on the night. Their 
number was eight, one or two of whom 
were probably women, not easy to dis- 
tinguish under the rags and tags in which 
the whole group was muflfied, accoutre- 
ments which were no longer either 
men’s or women’s dresses. Tatters have 
no sex. 

A smaller shadow, going and coming 
among the large ones, indicated a dwarf 
or a child. 

It was a child. 

II. 

ISOLATION. 

This is what might have been ob- 
served on closer inspection. 

All wore long cloaks, full of holes 
and patches, but made of stout cloth, 
hiding them up to the eyes if required — 
a good protection against the north wind 
and the curious. They moved with agil- 
ity under these cloaks. Most of them, 
instead of hats, wore a handkerchief 
rolled round the head, a sort of rudi- 
mentary turban used by Spaniards. 
This head-gear was not at all extraor- 
dinary in England. The South, just 
then, was in fashion at the North, prob- 
ably because the North used to beat 
the South. It triumphed over what it 
admired. After the defeat of the Anna- 


ISOLATION. 


25 


da, Castilian was an elegant court dia- 
lect with Elizabeth. To speak English 
before the English queen was almost 
“ shocking.” To he Influenced a little 
by the manners of those, to whom he 
gives law, is the custom of the barba- 
rous victor in face of the polite van- 
quished. The Tartar contemplates and 
imitates the Chinaman. This is why 
Spanish fashions penetrated into Eng- 
land, while, on the other hand, English 
interests were working themselves into 
Spain. 

One of the men in the embarking 
group looked like a leader. He wore 
Spanish buskins, his rags were embroid- 
ered and gilt, and a spangled waistcoat 
shone under his cloak like a fish’s belly. 
Another pulled down over his face a 
great felt hat shaped like a sombrero. 
This hat had no hole for a pipe — ^mark 
of a learned man. 

Over his tatters, on the principle that 
a man’s coat makes a boy’s cloak, the 
child wore, or was wrapped in, an old 
reefing-jacket that reached to his knees. 
His size denoted a boy of ten or eleven. 
He was barefoot. 

The crew of the ork consisted of a 
master and two men. 

Probably she came from Spain, and 
was returning thither. Doubtless she 
was on secret service from coast to 
coast. 

The persons v/hom she was about to 
take in kept whispering together. 

Strangely mixed was the mutual whis- 
pering of these creatures : now a Span- 
ish word, now a German, now a French ; 
sometimes "Welsh, sometimes Basque. 
It was a patois^ unless it was slang. 

They seemed to be of all nations, and 
of the same band. The crew were prob- 
ably of themselves, since they connived 
at their departure. 

This diverse troop seemed a company 
of comrade^, perhaps a set of accom- 
plices. 

Had there been a little more light. 


and had one regarded them a little 
carefully, there might have been seen 
on these people chaplets and scapula- 
ries half concealed under their rags. 
One of the might-be women mixed 
with the group had a rosary nearly 
equal in the size of its beads to a der- 
vish’s, and easy to recognize as a rosary 
of Llanymthefry, called also LlandiflEry. 

Had it not been so dark, one might 
also have observed a Nuestra Seflora 
with her carved and gilt, in the 

forepart of the ork, probably the 
Basque Virgin, a sort of panagia of the 
old Cantabrians. Under this image, 
which took the place of a figure-head, 
was a cage for combustibles, at present 
unlighted, an excess of precaution 
which showed extreme care for con- 
cealment. This fire-cage was clearly 
for two purposes : when lit, it burned 
in honor of the Virgin, and also lighted 
the sea, like a beacon doing duty as 
church candle. 

The clitwater, long-curved and sharp 
under the bowsprit, sprang from the 
bow like a crescent horn. Low down 
in the cutwater, under the Virgin’s 
feet, knelt an angel, his back against 
the stem, and his wings spread, regard- 
ing the horizon through a spy-glass. 
The angel was gilt like the Virgin. 

In the cutwater were openings and 
passages to admit the waves, another 
chance for gilding and arabesque. 

Under the Virgin was painted, in gilt 
capitals, the word Matutina^ the ship’s 
name, now illegible by reason of the 
darkness. 

At the foot of the cliff was deposited, 
in the pell-mell disorder of their fiight, 
the lading which these passengers took 
with them, and which, thanks to the 
plank serving as gangway, passed rap- 
idly from the shore into the vessel. 
Bags of biscuit, a keg of stockfish,- a 
box of portable soup, three barrels, one 
of fresh water, one of malt, one of tar, 
five or six bottles of ale, an old port- 


26 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


manteau, with straps and buckles, some 
trunks, some chests, a ball of tow for 
torches and signals, such was this lad- 
ing. These ragged gentry had baggage, 
which seemed to indicate a wandering 
life; walking beggars are obliged to 
own something; at times they would 
fain fly away like birds, but they can- 
not do so without abandoning their 
means of livelihood. "Whatever their 
wandering business may be, they must 
have boxes of tools and instruments to 
work with. So these men carried this 
luggage, an encumbrance on more than 
one occasion. 

It could not have been easy to trans- 
port all these traps to the bottom of 
such a cliff. The fact, moreover, dis- 
closed an intention of quitting for good. 
jNo time w^as lost ; there was a contin- 
ual movement from the shore to the 
.chip, and from the ship to the shore; 
each took his part of the work; one 
carried a bag, another a box. The pos- 
sible or probable women in this mixed 
mass worked like the rest. The child 
was overloaded. 

It may be doubted if this child had 
father or mother in the band. liiey 
took no notice of him. They made him 
work, that was aU. He seemed, not a 
child in a family, but a slave in a tribe. 
He waited on everybody, and nobody 
spoke to him. 

But he made haste, and, like all the 
doubtful troop of which he formed a 
part, seemed to have only one thought, 
that of embarking speedily. Did he 
know why ? Probably not. He hur- 
ried mechanically, because ho saw the 
others hurry. 

The ork was a decked vessel. The 
stowage of the freight in the hold was 
promptly arranged ; the moment had 
come to weigh anchor. The last case 
had been landed on the deck ; there 
were only the men to ship. Those two 
of the band who appeared to be their 
women were already on board ; six, in- 


cluding the child, were still on the low 
platform of the cliff. A movement of 
departure was made in the vessel, the 
master seized the tiller, a sailor took an 
axe to cut the mooring cable. To cut 
it, a sign of haste; one casts off when 
there is time. He of the six who 
seemed their chief, and had spangles on 
his rags, said in a low voice, Andamos 
(“We are going”). The boy darted 
toward the plank, to pass first. As he 
was putting his foot on it, two of the 
men, rushing forward at the risk of 
throwing him into the water, entered 
before him; a third shouldered him 
aside and passed ; the fourth kept him 
off with his fist and followed the third ; 
the fifth, who was the chief, bounded 
into the bark rather than entered it, 
and, as he leaped in, pushed with his 
heel the plank, which fell into the sea ; 
an axe-stroke severed the cable, the 
tiUer shifted, the ork left the shore, 
and the boy remained on land. 

III. 

SOLITUDE. 

The boy remained motionless on the 
rock, his eyes fixed. He uttered no 
call. He made no remonstrance. Yet 
it was unexpected ; but he said not a 
word. In the ork there was the same 
silence. On both sides a mute accept- 
ance of the increasing interval. Hot 
a cry from the child to these men, not 
an adieu from these men to the child. 
It was like a separation of shades on 
the banks of a Styx. The child, as if 
nailed to the rock which the high tide 
was begimung to wash, looked after the 
departing ship. He seemed to under- 
stand — what? The dark. 

Another • moment, and the ork had 
reached and entered the strait which 
led out of the creek. The top of the 
mast was visible against the clear sky 
above the cloven blocks through which. 


SOLITUDE. 


27 


as between two walls, the strait wound' 
its waj. The topmast quivered above 
the rocks, and seemed to sink into them. 
It disappeared. All was over. The 
bark had gained the sea. 

The child beheld this disappearance, 
astonished, but reflecting. His stupe- 
faction was complicated with a dark 
proof of what life is. There seemed to 
be some experience in this young crea- 
ture. Perhaps he was already a judge. 
Trials, come too soon, sometimes form 
in the depth of childhood’s dim reflec- 
tions a strange and fearful balance, in 
which these poor little souls weigh 
their God. 

Feeling himself innocent, he submit- 
ted. Hot a complaint. The irreproach- 
able reproaches not. 

The brusque elimination made of him 
could not wring from him even a ges- 
ture. He seemed to stiffen from within. 
Under this sudden assault of fate, which 
threatened to put the end of his exist- 
ence almost before its beginning, the 
boy did not bend. He received this 
thunder-stroke upright. 

To one who could have seen him thus 
astonished but not crushed, it would 
have been evident that, in the group 
who were abandoning him, nothing 
loved him, and he loved nothing. 

Thoughtful, he forgot the cold. Sud- 
denly the water moistened his feet ; the 
tide was rising ; a breath passed through 
his hair; the gale was coming. He 
shuddered. In waking from his trance 
he trembled from head to foot. 

He cast his eyes around him. He 
was alone. 

Till that day there had been for him 
no other men on earth than those 
now in the ork. These men had just 
fled. 

Let us add, strange as it must sound, 
that these men, the only ones whom he 
knew, were unknown to him. He could 
not have told who they were. 

His infancy had been passed among I 


them, without his feeling that he was 
one of them. He was in contact with 
them; nothing more. 

And now they had just forgotten 
him. 

He had no money about him, no 
shoes on his feet, hardly clothes on his 
back, not even a bit of bread in his 
pocket. 

It was winter and night; ho had 
several leagues to go before reaching a 
human dwelling. 

He knew not where he was. He knew 
nothing, except that those who came 
with him to the border of this sea had 
gone away without him. He felt him- 
self put out of life. He felt his kind 
give way from under him. 

He was ten years old. 

The boy was in a desert, between 
depths where he saw the night rise, 
and depths where he heard the waves 
growl. 

He stretched his thin little arms and 
yawned. I Then suddenly, like one who 
has made up his mind, and bravely 
shaking off his lethargy, with the nim- 
bleness of a squirrel — or a clown if you 
will — he turned his back to the creek 
and began to mount along the cliff. 
Alert and fearless of danger, he scaled 
the path, left it, came back to it. He 
was now hurrying toward the land as 
if he had a map of his route. Yet ho 
was going nowhere. He was hastening 
without an object, like a fugitive before 
destiny. 

Man climbs, brutes creep • up ; he 
climbed and crept. The Portland bluffs 
looking toward the south, there was 
scarcely any snow on the path. But 
what there was had been converted by 
the intense cold into powder, inconven- 
ient enough to walk in. The boy got 
on as he best could. His man’s jacket, 
too large for him, was an additional 
encumbrance. From time to time he 
found on an overhanging ledge, or in a 
declivity, a little ice which tripped him 


28 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


up. After hanging some moments over 
the precipice, he would hook himself on 
to a dry branch or projecting stone. 
Once he had to do with a flawed vein 
of rock which suddenly crumbled under 
him, drawing him along in its ruin. 
These clefts in flawed rocks are treach- 
erous. The child slid for some seconds 
like a tile on a roof ; he rolled down 
to the very verge of destruction and 
clutched a tuft of grass just in time to 
save himself. lie did not scream at the 
abyss any more than he had screamed 
at the men; having made good his 
footing, he recommenced the ascent in 
silence. The face of the clifi* was lofty, 
so that he met with changes and chances. 
Darkness increased the size of the preci- 
pice. This perpendicular rock had no 
end. It receded before the boy in the 
heights above. The summit seemed to 
rise in proportion as he rose. Even in 
the act of climbing, he gazed on the 
black entablature, placed like a barrier 
between him and the sky. At last he 
reached the top. 

lie leaped upon the upland. "We 
might almost say he landed, for he 
issued from the gulf. 

Hardly was he off the cliff when he 
shivered. He felt in his face the night 
gale biting him. The sharp northwest 
wind was blowing. He hugged his 
sailor’s jacket against his breast. It 
was a good garment. In naval lan- 
guage it is called a sou’wester, because 
this kind of woollen coat is impenetra- 
ble by the southwest rains. 

The child, having reached the up- 
land, stopped, planted his two naked 
feetflrmly on the frozen soil, and looked 
around. 

Behind him the sea, before him the 
land, overhead the heaven. But a heav- 
en without stars. An opaque mist 
masked the zenith. 

On reaching the top of the rocky 
wall, he found himself turned toward 
the land, and looked at that first. It 


stretched before him far as he could see, 
flat, frozen, covered with snow. Some 
tufts of heath shivered here and there. 
Ho roads visible. Hothing, not even a 
shepherd’s hut. In some spots were 
seen pale, eddying wreaths, whirlwinds 
of fine snow torn from earth by the 
gale and flying away. The horizon was 
plated, as it were, with successive undu- 
lations of land, now suddenly wrapped 
in mist. The great wan plains were 
disappearing under the 'white fog. 
Profound silence ; the expanse of infin- 
ity, the quiet of the tomb. 

The child turned round to the sea. 

The sea was as white as the land, the 
one with snow, the other with foam. 
Hothing could be so melancholy as the 
light of this double whiteness. Some 
night illuminations have very hard and 
clean shadows; the sea was steel, the 
cliffs ebony. From the elevation at 
which the boy stood, Portland Bay ap- 
peared almost as on a map, all wan 
within its semicircle of hills ; there was 
something dreamy about this nocturnal 
landscape, a pale circle enclosed in a 
dark crescent. The moon sometimes 
presents a similar appearance. From 
one cape to the other, along all the 
coast, not a single spark could be seen 
to indicate a hearth-fire, a window- 
light, an inhabited house. On earth, as 
in heaven, there was absence of light ; 
not a lamp below, not a star above. 
The wide, smooth waves of the gulf 
were here and there suddenly uplifted. 
The wind disarranged and wrinkled 
them like table-cloths. The fleeing 
bark was still visible in the bay, a black 
triangle gliding over the livid waves. 
Far off, the watery wastes were vague- 
ly agitated, in the gloomy visible dark- 
ness of immensity. 

The Matutina shot swiftly along. 
She grew smaller every moment. Hoth- 
ing is so rapid as the melting away of 
a ship in the sea distance. At one mo- 
ment she lit her bow lantern ; proba- 


QUESTIONS. 


29 


bly the darkness about her was growing 
troublesome, and the helmsman felt the 
need of light on the water. This lu- 
minous point, this spark visible from 
afar, clung sadly to the high, long, black 
shape. It was like a winding-sheet up- 
right and walking in the midst of the 
sea, and some one prowling under it 
with a star in his hand. 

There was a storm threatening in 
the air. The child did not regard it, 
but a sailor would have trembled. It 
was that moment of prescient anxiety 
when it seems as if the elements are 
about to become persons, and we are 
going to be present at the mysterious 
transformation of the wind into Aquilo. 
The sea will be Ocean ; the forces of 
Nature will reveal themselves as wills; 
what we take for a thing is a soul. We 
shall soon see. Hence comes horror ; 
the soul of man fears to be thus con- 
fronted with the soul of Nature. 

Chaos was coming on the stage. 
The wind, ruffling the fog, and piling 
up the clouds behind, was arranging 
the scenery for that terrible play of 
wave and winter which is called a 
snow-storm. 

The symptom of returning ships 
showed itself. Within a few minutes 
the roadstead was no longer empty. 
Scared barks, hurrying toward the an- 
chorage, rose to view at every moment 
behind the capes. Some doubled Port- 
land Hill, others Sainte Albans’ head. 
Sails were coming from the farthest 
distance. It was who should find a 
refuge first. Southward, the darkness 
was increasing, and the clouds, full of 
the night, were descending on the sea. 
The weight of the overhanging storm 
mournfully hushed the waves. It was 
not a time for starting. Yet the ork 
had gone. 

She had steered southward, was 
already out of the gulf and on the open 
sea. Suddenly the wind blew a 
squall ; the MaMtina^ which could still 


•1 

be clearly seen, covered herself with 
canvas, as if resolved to profit by the 
hurricane. It was a northwester, 
sullen and angry; it fell on the ork 
with stubborn fury. Taken in flank, 
the vessel heeled over, but did not hesi- 
tate, and kept out to sea. This indi- 
cated a flight rather than a voyage, 
less fear of the sea than of the land, 
and more anxiety about the pursuit of 
men than about that of the winds. 

Passing through all the stages of 
diminution, she buried herself in the 
horizon; the little star which she 
trailed with her, into the shadow, 
grew pale ; the ork, melting more and 
more into the night, disappeared, this 
time forever. At least the boy seemed 
to understand it so. He ceased look- 
ing at the sea. His eyes went back to 
the plains, the downs, the hills, the 
places where it was perhaps not im- 
possible to find something alive. He 
started in this unknown land. 

I 

IV. 

QUESTIONS. 

"What was this fugitive band that 
had left this child behind? Were these 
runaways GompracMcos f 

We have already seen in detail the 
measures taken by William III., and 
voted by Parliament, against the male- 
factors, male and female, called CompTO- 
chicos, or Gomprapequeilos^ or Gheylas. 

There are enactments that have a 
scattering effect. This statute falling 
on the Oomprachicos caused a genera] 
flight, not only of the Oomprachicos, 
but of vagabonds of every kind. It was 
a regular devil - take - the - hindmost. 
Host of the Oomprachicos went back 
to Spain. We have said that many of 
them were Basques. 

The first result of this law to protect 
childhood was singular enough— a sud- 
den abandonment of children. The pe- 
nal statute brought forth at once a crowd 


30 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


of foundlings, that is to say lostlings. 
N'othing easier to understand. Every 
wandering trdop that contained a child 
was suspected ; the mere fact of the 
child’s presence was an information. 
These are probably Comprachicos — such 
was the first idea of the sherifi*, the pro- 
vost, the constable. Arrests and inves- 
tigations followed. People, simply 
wretched, reduced to prowl about beg- 
ging, were terrified at the idea of passing 
for Comprachicos, which they were not 
— ^but the weak are shy of the possible 
mistakes of justice. Besides, these vaga- 
bond families are habitually timorous. 
The charge against the Comprachicos 
was the utilization of others’ children. 
But such are the comminglings of pov- 
erty and distress that it was sometimes 
difficult for a father and mother to 
prove that their own child was theirs. 
■\Yhere did you get this child ? How 
*could they prove that he came from 
God? The child became a danger; 
they got rid of him: flight was easier 
alone; father and mother decided to 
lose him, it might be in a wood, or on 
the sea-shore, or in a well. Drowned 
children were found in cisterns. 

Let us add that, in imitation of Eng- 
land, the Comprachicos were from that 
time fair game all over Europe. The sig- 
nal for pursuit had been given. There 
is nothing like setting a mark on people. 
Henceforth, there was rivalry among 
all the police-forces to seize them, and 
the alguazil kept as sharp a watch as the 
constable. Only twenty-three years ag o, 
you might still read, on a stone of the 
gate of Otero, an inscription untranslata- 
ble — for the wording of law disregards 
decency — marking, moreover, in a very 
matter-of-fact way, the shade of differ- 
ence between the child-trader and the 
kidnapper. Here it is in the original 
rough Spanish: Aqui quedan los orejas 
de los comprachicos y las holsas de los 
rolaniflos. Mientras que se tanellos al 
trabajo de mar. You see that the con- 


fiscation of their ears, etc., did not hin- 
der them from going to the galleys. So 
there was a general rout of the vaga- 
bonds. They started in fear, they ar- 
rived in a tremble. Along all the coast 
of Europe these stealthy arrivals were 
watched. It was impossible for a band 
to embark with a child, for it was dan- 
gerous to disembark with one. To lose 
the child was the shortest way. 

Who had cast off the child, whom we 
have just seen darkly in the dark soli- 
tude of Portland ? 

Probably some Comprachicos. 

y. 

HUMAN INTEEVENTION. 

It might be about seven in the even- 
ing. The wind had lulled, a sign that 
it would soon rise again. The boy was 
on the extreme south upland of Port- 
land point. 

Portland is a peninsula. But the 
child knew not what a peninsula was, 
and did not even know the word Port- 
land. But one thing he did know, that 
a person may walk tiU he drops. An 
idea is a guide, but he had no ideas. 
They had brought him there, and left 
him there. They and tJiere^ these two 
riddles, represented his whole destiny ; 
they were the human race, there was 
the universe. Here below he had ab- 
solutely no starting-point except the 
small portion of ground where he placed 
his heel, hard ground it was too, and 
cold to his naked feet. In the great 
world opening all around him in the 
dim twilight, what was there for this 
child? Hothing. 

Toward this nothing he was ad- 
vancing. 

All around him spoke of the total 
absence of man. 

He crossed the first plateau diagonally, 
then a second, then a third. At the 
end of each, the boy found a break in 
the ground; the slone was sometimes 


HUMAN INTERVENTION. 


31 


abrupt, but always short ; for the high, 
barren downs of Portland point are 
like great flagstones partly overlapping. 
The south side seems to underlie the 
preceding plain, and the north side 
rises above the next one. These places 
the boy had to cross by jumping, which 
he did with much agility. From 
time to time he checked his progress, 
and seemed to hold counsel with him- 
self. The night was growing very dark, 
and his range of vision shortening ; he 
could only see a few steps off. 

Suddenly he stopped, listened a mo- 
ment, and a slight movement of the 
head showed his satisfaction, as he 
turned rapidly and made for a moderate 
elevation which he perceived dimly on 
his right, at that spot of the plain which 
was nearest the cliff. On this eminence 
was a form which, through the mist, 
resembled a tree. The child had just 
heard in that quarter a noise, which 
was not the noise of the wind or the 
sea, neither was it the cry of any animal. 
He thought some one was there. 

A few strides brought him to the foot 
of the mound. There was some one 
there, sure enough. 

The doubtful object on the top of the 
elevation was now clearly visible. It 
was like a great arm rising straight out 
of the earth. At the upper end of this 
arm a sort of foreflnger, propped un- 
derneath by its thumb, reached out 
horizontally. This arm, this thumb, 
and this forefinger, traced a carpenter’s 
square against the sky. At the junc- 
tion of this sort of thumb and sort of 
finger was a cord from which hung 
something black and shapeless. This 
cord, moved by the wind, made a 
noise like a chain, and this was the 
sound which the child had heard. 

The cord, seen close, was what its 
sound denoted, a chain ; a ship-chain 
with half-solid rings. 

By that mysterious law of amalgama- 
tion which, throughout all nature, ac- 
3 


cumulates appearances upon realities, 
the place, the hour, the mist, the tragic 
sea, the distant agitations in the horizon, 
all heaped themselves on this profile 
and made it seem of enormous size. 

The object attached to the chain re- 
sembled a large sheath. It was swaddled 
like an infant and as tall as a man. The 
upper part was round, and the end of 
the chain wound about it. The bottom 
was jagged, and bones came through 
the holes. 

A light breeze shook the chain, and 
that which hung on the chain waved 
softly. This passive mass obeyed the 
vague quiverings of surrounding space. 
It had an indefinable horror ; tlie fear 
which makes objects disproportionate 
had almost taken away its size in leaving 
its shape. It was an essence of blackness 
with an aspect of its own, night above 
and night within. It was a prey to 
sepulchral exaggeration. Twilights, 
moon-rises, and star-sets, the clouds, 
those lo^-lines of space, all the winds 
of the compass, had finally entered into 
the composition of this visible nonentity. 
This block hanging in the wind shared 
the impersonality scattered far over sea 
and sky, and the darkness was finishing 
the thing that had been a man. 

It was that which no longer is. 

To be a remnant — ^liuman language 
cannot express the idea. To exist no 
longer and yet to persist, to be in the 
gulf and out of it, to reappear above the 
wave of Death as if refusing to be swal- 
lowed up — there is a certain amount of 
impossibility mixed with such realities, 
and therefore they are unspeakable. 
This being — if it was a being — this som- 
bre witness — here were remains and 
terrible remains. Kemains of what? 
First of nature, then of society. Cipher, 
and total. 

The elements in their unmitigated 
rigor had it at their mercy. The pro- 
found forgetfulness of solitude encom- 
passed it. Exposed to unknown ad- 


^9 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


ventures, without defence against the 
will of the darkness, it was forever 
suffering. The hurricanes were upon 
it, fulfilling their gloomy mission. 

This spectre was given up to plunder. 
It suffered that horrible outrage, putre- 
luction in the open air. An outlaw 
of the coflin, it was annihilated without 
reposing, falling into ashes by summer 
and into mud by winter. Death needs 
a veil, the tomb requires modesty; there 
was no veil, no modesty here. Shame- 
less and open rottenness. When Death 
shows his work, he is impudent. He 
insults all the decencies of the shade 
when working outside of his laboratory, 
the tomb. 

This dead creature was stripped. 
Stripping the stripped, inexorable end. 
No more marrow in his bones, no more 
entrails in his stomach, no more voice 
in his throat. A corpse is a pocket, 
turned inside out and emptied by death. 
If he had possessed a personality, where 
was it ? Perhaps stiU there, and that 
was grievous to think of. Something 
flitting around, something chained. Can 
one imagine a more ghastly feature of 
darkness ? 

There are realities here below re- 
sembling egresses to the unknown, by 
which it seems possible for our thoughts 
to go out, and which our conjectures 
seize upon. Imagination has its compelle 
intrare. Pass through certain places 
and before certain objects ; you cannot 
help stopping, giving yourself up to 
dreams and letting your mind go on. 
In the invisible there are dim gates 
ajar. None could have lighted on this 
dead man without meditating. 

He was wasting silently, but on a 
great scale. His blood had been drunk, 
his skin eaten, his flesh stolen. Noth- 
ing had passed without taking some- 
thing from him. December had bor- 
rowed of him its cold, midnight its 
terrors, the iron its rust, the plague its 
miasma, the flower its perfume. His 


slow disintegration was a toll — a toll 
paid by the corpse to wind, rain, and 
dew, birds, andA’eptiles. All the dark 
hands of night had rummaged this 
body. 

A strange, indescribable dweller this, 
who dwelt in the night. He was in a 
plain and on a hill, and he was not 
there. He could be touched, and yet 
he had vanished. He was something 
shadowy that made the darkness com- 
plete. After the disappearance of the 
day, in the vast, still gloom, he was 
gloomily of a piece with every thing. 
By his mere presence he increased the 
melancholy of the storm and the calm 
of the stars. The inexpressible sense 
of the desert became concrete in him. 
Waif of an unknown destiny, he fig- 
ured in all the savage concealments of 
night. In his mystery was a vague 
reflection of all enigmas. 

All round him was sensible a dimi- 
nution of life, as it were, which went 
to the very depths. The inanimate 
neighborhood had less certainty and 
confidence. The shudder of the grass- 
es and brushwood, a lonely melancholy, 
an anxiety that seemed conscious, tragi- 
cally appropriated all the landscape for 
this dark figure hanging by its chain. 
The presence of a spectre on the hori- 
zon aggravates solitude. 

It was a phantom, implacable be- 
cause exposed to blasts that were 
never lulled. The eternal commotion 
made it terrible. It seemed, fearful to 
say, a centre of space, with something 
immense resting on it. Who knows? 
Perhaps that equity, dimly seen and 
defied here, which is beyond our jus- 
tice. In its sojourn outside the tomb, 
men’s vengeance was mixed with its 
own. It bore testimony in the twi- 
light and the desert. It proved that 
matter may disquiet us, for the matter 
before which we tremble is the ruin of 
our spiritual body. For dead matter to 
trouble us, mind must have inhabited 


HUMAN INTERVENTION. 


33 


it. This object denounced the lower 
law to the higher. Placed there by- 
man, it waited for God. Huge, fantas-* 
tic shadows, with all the dubious turns 
of cloud and wave, floated above it. 

Behind this vision was some dark, 
indefinite obstacle. Around this corpse 
was infinity, broken by nothing ; not a 
tree, not a roof, not a traveller. When 
the vastness that overhangs us, be it 
heaven or abyss, life, death, eternity, 
appears open, it is then that we feel 
every thing inaccessible, shut off, 
walled up. The opening of the in- 
finite is the most formidable closing. 

Before this thing stood the child, 
mute, astonished, staring. 

For a man it would have beep a 
gallows, for the boy it was a ghost. 
Where the man would have seen the 
body, the boy saw the spectre. Be- 
sides, he did not understand it. 

There are fascinations of all kinds. 
There was one on the top of this 
mound. The child took a step, then 
two. He ascended, though he wanted 
to descend, and advanced, though he 
wanted to retreat. 

Bold, yet trembling, he went to 
make a close examination of the phan- 
tom. When he had arrived under the 
gibbet, he raised his head and took a 
survey. 

The phantom was tarred ; in places 
it shone. The child could make out 
the face. It was coated with bitumen, 
and this sticky, tenacious mask seemed 
to shape itself by the nocturnal reflec- 
tions. The boy saw the mouth, which 
was a hole, the nose, which was a hole, 
the eyes, which were two holes. The 
body was wrapped and almost packed 
in a coarse canvas impregnated with 
naphtha. This canvas was rotten and 
cracked. A knee passed through. One 
slit exposed the ribs. Part was body, 
part bones. The face was clay-color ; 
some slugs had wandered over it, leav- 
ing vague silvery ribbons. The can- 


vas, sticking to the bones, brought them 
out, like the drapery of a -statue. The 
skull, cracked and split, was parted 
like a rotten fruit. The teeth had re- 
mained human; they had preserved 
their smile. A departing cry seemed 
to sound in the open mouth. There 
were some whisker-hairs on the cheeks, 
and the head, hanging on one side, 
seemed to pay attention. 

There had been recent restoration. 
The face was freshly tarred, as well as 
the knee which projected through the 
canvas, and the exposed ribs. The feet 
below were uncovered. Just under 
them in the grass might be seen two 
shoes, grown shapeless in the snow 
and rain. They had fallen from the 
body. 

The barefooted child looked at these 
shoes. The wind, more and more 
threatening, had those lulls which are 
part of the preparations for a storm; 
for somp- minutes it had ceased entirely. 
The carcass did not stir. The chain 
was motionless as a plumb-line. 

Like all new-comers into life (taking 
into account the special pressure of his 
destiny), the child had in him doubtless 
that awakening of ideas peculiar to 
young years which tries to open the 
brain, and resembles the peckings of 
a bird in the egg ; but all that his slight 
consciousness embraced at that mo- 
ment was resolved into stupor. Ex- 
cess of sensation, like too much oil in a 
lamp, finishes by stifling thought. A 
man would have questioned himself; 
the boy kept on looking. 

The tar gave a moist aspect to this 
countenance. The drops of bitumen, 
congealed in what had been eyes, looked 
like tears. Moreover, thanks to the 
bitumen, the waste of death had been 
visibly slackened, if not stopped, and 
reduced to the least possible damage. 
What the child had before him was an 
object of care. This man was evident- 
ly valuable. He had not been worth 


34 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


keeping alive, but they made a iwint 
of presei’ving him when dead. The 
gibbet was old and worm-eaten, but 
solid, and had been many years in use. 

It was an immemorial English custom 
to tar smugglers. They were hung 
on the shore, coated with bitumen, and 
left hanging; warnings require open 
air, and tarred warnings keep better. 
And this tar was humane, for thus the 
gibbeted onqs required renewal less 
frequently. The gallows were placed 
at intervals along the coast, as lamp- 
posts are now. The hanged man did 
duty for lantern. He lighted, after his 
fashion, his comrades, the smugglers. 
They saw the gibbets far off at sea. 
Here’s one, first notice ; there’s another, 
second notice. All which did not stop 
smuggling, but social order is built up 
of such things. This fashion lasted in 
England down to the beginning of our 
century. In 1822 three varnished cul- 
prits might be seen hanging before 
Dover Castle. Hor was the protective 
process limited to smugglers. England 
put her robbers, her incendiaries, and 
her assassins to the same use. John 
Painter, who set fire to the dockyard of 
Portsmouth, was hanged and tarred in 

1776. The Abb6 Coyer, who calls him 
John the Painter, saw him again in 

1777. John Painter was hanged in 
chains over the ruin of his own mak- 
ing, and furbished up from time to time. 
This carcass lasted, one might almost 
say, lived, nearly fourteen years. In 
1788 he was still in good working order, 
but in 1790 he had to be replaced. The 
Egyptians set store by kings’ mummy ; 
people’s mummy, it seems, can be use- 
ful also. 

The wind, having a strong hold on 
the mound, had stripped it entirely of 
snow. The grass was reappearing on 
it, with some thistles here and there. 
The hill was covered with that close, 
short marine turf which makes the tops 
of clifi*s look like green cloth. Under 


the gallows, at the very spot above 
which hung the criminal’s feet, was a 
high, thick tuft, remarkable on that 
barren soil. The bodies fallen piece- 
meal there for ages explained the beauty 
of the grass. The earth fattens upon 
man. 

A sad fascination held the child. Ho 
remained there, open-mouthed. He 
only stooped down a moment for 
a nettle which pricked his legs, and 
stung him like a reptile. Then he 
stood straight again and looked up to 
the face which looked down on him. 
Looked at him all the more because it 
had no eyes. It was a general gaze, an 
indescribable, darkly gleaming stare, 
which came from the skull and the 
teeth as much as from the void spaces 
under the eyebrows. The whole head 
of the dead man looks at you, and that 
makes it terrible. You feel you are 
seen without eyeballs ; this makes the 
spectre horrid. 

Gradually the child himself became 
terrible. He did not stir. Torpor was 
gaining on him. He did not perceive 
that he was losing consciousness. He 
was growing numb and stiff. Winter 
was silently betraying him to night, for 
winter is treacherous. The child was 
almost a statue. The petrifying cold 
penetrated his bones ; the darkness 
was creeping into him like a reptile. 
The stupefying emanation of the snow 
rises in man like a dim tide ; the boy 
was slowly absorbed in an immobility 
resembling that of the spectre before 
him. He was about to fall asleep. 

In the hand of sleep is the finger of 
death. The boy felt himself seized by 
that hand. He was on the point of 
falling under the gibbet, and could no 
longer tell whether he stood. 

The end always imminent, no transi- 
tion between being and ceasing to bo, 
the return to the crucible, the possible 
slipping off at any moment, such a pre- 
cipice is creation. 


HUMAN INTERVENTION. 


35 


A moment more, and child and 
corpse, the life just sketched and the 
life in ruins, would he joined in the 
same annihilation. The spectre seemed 
to understand this and wish to prevent 
it. Suddenly it began to move. It 
looked as if it would warn the child. It 
was the wind beginning to blow again. 

nothing so strange as this corpse in 
motion. The body at the end of the 
chain, impelled by an invisible breath, 
assumed an oblique attitude, rose to the 
left, fell back, rose to the right, kept 
rising and falling with a slow and dead- 
ly mechanical prepision. Frightful see- 
saw ! One might have imagined in the 
gloom the pendulum of eternity’s cl<4ck. 

It lasted some time. At this agita- 
tion of death the boy felt awakened, 
and was positively frightened through 
his chill. The chain, at every oscilla- 
tion, creaked with hideous regularity. 
It seemed to take breath, then began 
again, and its creaking Avas like the 
chirp of a tree-cricket. 

An approacl^ing squall causes sudden 
puffs of wind.* The breeze became a 
gale all at once. The swing of the car- 
cass received a funereal emphasis. It 
was no longer balanced but shaken, and 
the chain screamed instead of creaking. 

It seemed that the scream was heard. 
If a call, it was answered. From the 
far horizon a great noise came up. It 
was the noise of wings. 

An incident was at hand, the stormy 
incident of churchyards and solitudes, 
the arrival of a flock of ravens. 

Black flying spots dotted the clouds, 
pierced the fog, grew larger, di’ew near- 
er, joined, thickened, as they hurried 
toward the hill, uttering their cry. It 
was like the coming of a legion. These 
winged vermin of the gloom pounced 
upon the gibbet. The child recoiled in 
teri’or. 

Swarms obey orders. The ravens 
were grouped on the gallows. Not one 
on the body. They talked together. 


Croaking is frightful. Ilowling, hiss- 
ing, roaring belong to life ; croaking is 
a satisfied acceptance of putrefaction. 
It is like the sound which breaks the 
silence of the tomb. Croaking is a 
voice with night in it. The boy v^as 
petrified — with fright even more than 
with cold. 

The ravens stopped croaking. One 
of them lighted on the skeleton. This 
Avas the signal. All threw themselves 
upon it ; there was a cloud of wings ; 
then all the feathers closed, and the 
spectre disappeared under a cluster of 
black blisters stirring in the darkness. 
At this moment the dead man shook 
himself. 

"Was it he or the wind that did it? 
He gave a frightful bound. The rising 
hurricane came to his help. The phan- 
tom Avent into conAmlsions. It was the 
squall, now blowing its hardest, that 
took hold of him and shook him in 
every direction. He became horrible. 
He stri ggled like a madman. Fearful 
puppet, with a gallows-chain for string ! 
Some ghostly jester had seized the cord 
and was playing with the mummy. It 
turned and jumped as if about to dis- 
joint itself. The birds flew aAvay in 
terror: all these loathsome creatures 
rebounded, as it were. Then they 
came back, and a fight began. 

The dead man seemed endoAved with 
monstrous life; The blasts lifted him 
as if they would carry him off, he 
looked as if struggling and trying to 
get away ; his fetters kept him back. 
The birds followed all his motions, re- 
coiling, then rushing on, seared but ob- 
stinate. On one side a strange attempt 
at flight, on the other pursuit of a 
chained object. Impelled by every 
spasm of the gale, the corpse threAV 
somersets, had fits of anger, went and 
came, rose and fell, repelling the scat- 
tered swarm. The dead man was a 
club, the ravens powder. The flock 
of fierce assailants obstinately refused 


36 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


to quit its hold. The corpse, as if mad- 
dened under this pack of beaks, multi- 
plied his blind hlorrs in the void, like 
strokes of a stone tied to its sling. 
Sometimes he had all the claws and 
wings upon him, then nothing; the 
hand would vanish and immediately 
return in full fury. Frightful punish- 
ment, continuing after life. The 
birds seemed frenzied. Such swarms 
ought to issue from the air-holes of 
hell. Blows of beak and claw, tear- 
ings-off of fragments no longer flesh, 
crackings of the gallows, rustlings of 
the skeleton, clankings of rusty iron, 
shrieks of the squall — what struggle 
could be more dismal? A spectre was 
matched against demons. 

At times, when the gale redoubled 
its violence, he pivotted upon himself, 
faced the^ swarm on all sides at once, 
seemed to wish to run after the birds ; 
his very teeth looked as if desirous to 
bite them. lie had the wind for him 
and the chain against him, as if the 
dark deities were involved in the afi’air. 
The hurricane joined in the battle. 
The corpse twisted itself, the flock of 
birds rolled over him in a spiral. 

It was a whirl in a whirlwind. 

And below all was heard a huge 
rumbling. That was the sea. 

The boy saw this vision. Suddenly 
he began to tremble in all his limbs, a 
shiver coursed through his body, he 
staggered, shook, all but fell, turned 
round, pressed both hands on his fore- 
head, as if it were a support, then, hag- 
gard, with dishevelled hair and closed • 
eyes, he descended the hill at full speed 
and took to flight, leaving this noctur- 
nal battle behind him. 

VI. 

THE NOETH POINT OF POETLAND. 

He ran till he was blown, at random, 
lost, in the snow, in the plain, in space. 


This flight restored him to warmth. 
He needed it: without the run and the 
scare he would have died. 

When his wind gave out, he stopped. 
But he dared not look back. He 
thought that the birds must be pursuing 
him, that the corpse must have unfast- 
ened its chain and was probably com- 
ing the same way as himself, that 
doubtless the very gibbet was running 
down the hill after the corpse. He 
feared to see this if he looked round. 

When he had recovered his breath a 
little, he renewed his flight. 

To sum up facts is not the province 
of childhood. Despite his growing ter- 
ror he received impressions, but with- 
out connecting them in his mind or 
drawing conclusions. He was going, 
it mattered not whither or how, run- 
ning with the pain and difficulty of one 
hi a nightmare. Hearly three hours had 
passed since he was deserted; now his 
forward march, while remaining uncer- 
tain, had changed its object; before he 
was in search, now he was in flight. 
He was no longer hungry or cold, only 
frightened. One instinct had replaced 
another. His only thought now was to 
escape. Escape from what? from 
every thing. Life, from all sides, seemed 
like a horrible wall around him. Could 
he have escaped from things altogether, 
he would have ddrre it. 

But children are not acquainted with 
that jail-breaking which we caU sui- 
cide. 

So he ran on. 

He ran for an indeflnite time. But 
breath gives out, and so does fear 
also. 

All at once, as if seized with a sud- 
den access of energy and intelligence, 
he stopped, looking ashamed of run- 
ning away ; he drew himself together, 
stamped his foot, boldly lifted his head; 
and turned about. 

There was no more hill, nor gibbet, 
nor flight of ravens. 


THE NOETH POINT OF POETLAND. 


Tlie fog liad regained possession of 
the horizon. 

The hoy pursued his course. 

But now he did not run ; he walked. 
To say that this meeting a corpse had 
made a man of him, would he to limit 
the manifold and confused impression 
which he was undergoing. There was 
much more and much less in it. This 
gihhet, very dubious in the rudimen- 
tary apprehension of his thoughts, re- 
mained for him an apparition. But 
an overcome terror strengthens, and he 
felt himself stronger. Had he been old 
enough to fathom his own mind, he 
would have found in himself a thousand 
other incipient meditations, hut the re- 
flection of children is unformed ; it is 
much if they feel the hitter after-taste 
of the thing, for them obscure, which 
the developed man calls indignation. 

Besides, a child has the gift of 
promptly accepting the close of a sensa- 
tion. Those distant and vanishing out- 
lines, which form the aggravation of 
painful things, escape his notice. The 
child is protected against too complex 
emotion by the very weakness which 
is his deficiency. He sees the fact, and 
few things with it. Tlie difiiculty of 
contenting one’s self with partial ideas 
does not exist for him. The trial of 
life begins later, when experience ar- 
rives with its brief. Then the groups 
of encountered facts are confronted, a 
grown and instructed intelligence com- 
pares them, the recollections of youth 
reappear under our passions like a 
palimpsest under its erasures ; these rec- 
ollections are logical grounds, and 
what was a vision in the child’s brain 
becomes a syllogism in the man’s. 
But experience varies, turning out well 
or ill according to the difference of 
natures. The good ones ripen, the bad 
ones rot. 

The boy had run a full quarter of a 
league, and walked another quarter. 
Suddenly he felt a cramp in his 


stomach; then occurred suddenly to 
him an idea which immediately eclipsed 
the hideous apparition on the hill — that 
of eating. Luckily there is in man an 
animal nature which brings him back 
to reality. 

Eat ? what ? and where ? and how ? 

He felt in his pockets — mechanically, 
for he well knew that they were empty. 

Then he quickened his steps. Tvuth- 
out knowing whither he went, he hast- 
ened toward a possible lodging. 

This faith in an inn is one of the 
roots of man’s trust in providence. 

To believe in a sleeping-place is to 
believe in God. 

But on this snowy plain there was 
nothing that resembled a roof. 

The child kept walking, the upland 
still spread before him, naked as far as 
the eye could reach. 

There had never been a human hab- 
itation on this table-land. It was at 
the foot of the cliffs, in holes of the 
; rock that they dwelt formerly, for want 
of wood to build huts — those old primi- 
tive inhabitants who had slings for 
weapons, dried cow-dung for fuel, for 
religion the idol Heil that stood in a 
clearing at Dorchester, and for occupa- 
tion the fishery of that gray false coral 
which the Welsh used to call jplin and 
the Greeks Isidis plocamos. 

The child reconnoitred as ho best 
could. All our life is a meeting of 
cross-roads where the choice of direc- 
tions is perilous. This young creature 
had an early option o‘f doubtful chances. 
Still he kept on ; but though his legs 
seemed of steel, he began to tire. Xo 
paths in this plain ; if there had been 
any, the snow had effaced them. In- 
*stinctively he continued to shift his 
course eastward. Sharp stones had 
flayed his heels; had it been light 
enough, there might have been seen, in 
his footsteps on the snow, red marks 
of blood, his blood. 

He remembered nothing. He was 


38 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


crossing the table-land from south to 
north, and the hand with which he 
came had probably crossed it from 
west to east, for fear of meeting some 
one. They had apparently started in 
some fisher’s or smuggler’s bark from 
some point of the Uggescombe coast, 
such as Saint Oatherine-Chap or Swan- 
sea, to catch at Portland the ork which 
awaited them there, and they must 
have disembarked in one of the creeks 
of Weston to reembark in one of the 
creeks of Eston. This route was cut 
at right-angles by that which the lad 
now took. It w'as impossible for him 
to recognize his road. 

The Portland table-land has here 
and there high swells, cut short by the 
proximity of the coast, and perpendic- 
ular toward the sea. The boy came to 
one of these lofty points and stopped 
there, .hoping to find more signs in a 
larger space, trying to see something. 
All his horizon was a vast livid opacity. 
He examined it attentively, and, under 
his fixed look, it became less indistinct. 
At th,e bottom of a distant fold of land, 
eastward, under this livid opacity, this 
sort of wan, moving blufiF, wdiich looked 
like a cliff cut out of night, crept and 
floated some dim black rags, a species 
of scattered fragments. This pale opa- 
city was the fog, these black rags were 
smoke. Where there is smoke there are 
men. The ^child bent his steps that way. 

At. some distance he could just see a 
descent, and at the foot of the descent, 
among tlie shapeless forms of rock 
looming through the mist, something 
like a sand-bank or tongue of land, 
which probably joined the table-land 
that he had just crossed to the plains 
on the horizon. That was clearly his 
way. In fact, he had arrived at the 
isthmus of Portland, a sort of delta 
called Chess Hill. 

He entered on the slope of the table- 
land. It was a hard descent, the coun- 
terpart of the ascent wdiich he had 


made to get out of the bay, only less 
rugged. Whatever goes up, must come 
down. He rolled down, after having 
climbed up. 

He leaped from one rock to another 
at the risk of a sprain or a tumble into 
the dim depth. To hold himself back 
while slipping over the rocks and the 
icc, he clutched at the long rushes of 
the downs and the prickly furze, and 
all their points X3ierced his fingers. 
Sometimes he found a smooth declivity 
for a little way, and took breath as he 
descended; then it was steep again, 
and every step required a manoeuvre. 
In descending precipices, every move- 
ment solves a problem ; you must be 
skilful under pain of death. The boy 
solved these problems with an instinct 
which a monkey would have remarked, 
and a science which a mountebank 
would have admired. The descent 
was steep and long, but he came to 
the end of it. The moment gradually 
approached wdien he would land on 
the dimly-seen isthmus. 

At intervals, without . ceasing to 
jump or slide from rock to rock, he 
pricked up his ears, like a deer listen- 
ing. Far off on his left, he heard a 
faint, pervading noise, like the low 
note of a trumpet. There was in the 
air that movement of blasts prepara- 
tory to the terrific north wind, wdiich 
one hears coming from the pole like a 
host of clarions. At the same time 
the child felt now and then on his fore- 
head, his eyes, his cheeks, something 
which had the effect of the palm of a 
cold hand laid on his face. It was the 
large icy flakes, at first dropping gen- 
tly, then in whirls, announcing the 
snow-storm. The child was covered 
with them. The snow-storm, which 
for more than an hour had been on the 
sea, was reaching the land. It invaded 
the downs gradually. It entered ob- 
liquely by the northwest on to Portland 
Heights. 


/ 




THE OUTER LAWS. 


BOOK II. 

THE OBK AT SEA. 

I. 

THE OTJTEE LAWS. 

The snow-storm is one of tlie un- 
known quantities of the sea. It is the 
most obscure of meteors, obscure in 
every sense of the word ; a mixture of 
fog and tempest, a phenomenon not yet 
well explained. This uncertainty causes 
many disasters. 

Men try to explain every thing by the 
■wind and the current. Mow, there is 
in the air a force which is not wind, and 
in the water a force which is not cur- 
rent. This force, the same in the air 
as in the water, is effluvium. The air and 
the water are two masses of liquid, near- 
ly identical, and changing mutually into 
each other by condensation and dilation, 
so much so, that breathing is a species 
of drinking; the effluvium alone is fluid. 
The wind and the current are only im- 
X^ulses, the effluvium is a steady stream. 
The wind is visible in its clouds, the 
current in its foam ; the effluvium is in- 
visible. Yet from time to time it says. 
There I am., and its way of saying so is 
a thunder-clap. 

The snow-storm presents a problem 
analogous to that of the dry fog. If an 
explanation of the Spaniards’ eallina, 
and the Ethiopian’s quolar., be possible, 
this explanation will certainly be made 
by attentive observation of the magnetic 
effluvium. 

Without the effluvium, a host of facts 
remain enigmatic. The altered velocity 
of the wind, changing in a storm from 
three feet to two hundred and twenty 
feet a second, may possibly cause the 
alteration of the waves, rising from three 
inches in a calm, to thirty-six feet in a 
stormy sea; the horizontalness of the 
blasts, even in a squall, may possibly 



make us understand how a wave thirty 
feet high can be fifteen hundred feet 
long ; but why the waves of the Pacific 
are four times higher near America than 
near Asia, that is to say, higher at the 
west than at the east; why it is the 
contrary in the Atlantic; why, under 
the Equator, it is the middle of the sea 
which is highest ; why these ocean 
swells change their place : this is what 
the magnetic effluvium, combined with 
the rotation of the earth and the attrac- 
tion of the heavenly bodies, can alone 
explain. 

Does it not require this mysterious 
complication to understand an oscilla- 
tion of the wind, going, for instance, by 
the west, from southeast to northeast, 
then returning abruptly by the same 
great round, from northeast to south- 
east, so as to make, in thirty-six hours, 
the prodigious circuit of five hundred 
and sixty degrees, which was the course 
run over by the snow-storm of March 
ir, 1867^ 

The storm-waves of Australia reach 
eighty feet in height ; Australia is near 
the pole. A tempest in our latitudes is 
due less to the disturbance of the winds, 
than to continuous electric submarine 
discharges; in 18G6, the transatlantic 
cable was regularly impeded in its 
working two hours out of the twenty- 
four, from noon till two p. m., by a sort 
of intermittent fever. Certain composi- 
tions and decompositions of forces cause 
phenomena, and thrust themselves on 
the sailors’ calculations, under pain of 
shipwreck. The day when navigation, 
now a routine, shall become a mathe- 
matical science; the day, for instance, 
when men will try to find out why, in 
our climate, hot winds sometimes come 
from the north, and cold ones from the 
south; the day when we shall under- 
stand that the diminutions Of tempera- 
ture are proportioned to the depths of 
the sea; the day when we shall have 
before our minds the fact that the globe 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


3;40 ^ ,v/ /■ 

is ^ great magnet polarized in space, 
having two axes, one of rotation, one of 
effluvium, cutting each other at the 
centre of the earth, and that the mag- 
netic poles revolve round the geograph- 
ic; when those who risk their lives 
shall choose to risk them scientifically; 
when the unstable medium of naviga- 
tion shall have been studied; when 
every captain shall be a meteorologist, 
every pilot a chemist — then will many 
catastrophes be avoided. The sea is as 
much magnetic as watery; an ocean of 
forces floats, unknown, in the ocean of 
currents; nlown-stream, we may say. 
To see in the ocean only a mass of water 
is not to see it at all ; the ocean is a com- 
ing and going of fluid as much as a flux 
and reflux of liquid, affected even more 
by attraction than by hurricanes. Mo- 
lecular adhesion (shown by capillary 
attraction, among pther phenomena) 
shares, in the ocean, the grandeur of the 
ocean’s volume, and the waves of efflu- 
vium sometimes assist, sometimes op- 
pose, the waves of the air and the 
water. He who knows not the electric 
laws knows not the hydraulic, for they 
interpenetrate. True, no study is more 
difficult or more doubtful; it borders 
on imposture, as astronomy borders on 
astrology. But without it there is no 
real navigation. 

This said, let us pass on. 

The snow-storm is one of the most 
dangerous compounds of the sea. It is 
above all magnetic. The pole produces 
it, as it produces the. aurora borealis, 
inspiring the fog of the one and the 
gleam of the other; the effluvium is 
perceptible in the snow-flake as well as 
in tlie striated flame. 

Tempests are the nervous attacks and 
fits of madness to which the sea is sub- 
ject. The sea has its sick-headaches. 
Storms may be compared to sicknesses; 
some are mortal, others not ; you may 
escape from this one, and not from that. 
The whirlwind of snow passes for being 


usually fatal. Jarabija, one of Magel- 
lan’s pilots, styled it “a cloud that 
came from the bad side of the devil.” * 

The old Spanish sailors called this 
kind of whirlwind La Nex^ada when it 
snowed, and La Helada when it hailed. 
According to them, bats fell from the 
sky in the snow. 

Snow-storms belong to the polar lati- 
tudes. But sometimes they slip, one 
might almost say crumble, there is so 
much ruin in these aerial incidents, as 
far down as our climes. 

We have seen tliat the Matutina, 
in leaving Portland, entered on a great 
nocturnal risk, aggravated by an ap- 
proaching storm. She had confronted 
all these threats wdth a sort of tragic 
audacity. Nevertheless, let us not for- 
get it, she had had her warning. 

II. 

FILLI^SrO UP THE OEIGINAL PEOFILES. 

As long as the ork was in Portland 
gulf, there was little sea; the waves 
were almost still. However dark the 
ocean, it was still light in the sky. 
The ork hugged as closely as possible 
the cliff which was a good screen for it. 

There were ten persons on board the 
little Biscayan felucca, three of the crew, 
and seven passengers, two of these, 
women. By the light of the open sea 
(for extent illumines twilight) all the 
figures were now clearly brought out. 
Besides, they were no longer hiding, 
no longer embarrassed ; each ‘resumed 
his liberty of motion, uttered his cry, 
showed his face ; their departure was a 
deliverance. 

The motley nature of the group was 
strikingly apparent. The women were 
of no age ; a wandering life cuts youth 
short, and poverty is a wrinlde of it- 
self. One was a Basque of the dry- 
ports, the other, the woman with the 


=** Una nubesaleidaclel malo lado del cliaMo, 


FILLING UP THE OEIGINAL PEOFILES. 


41 


large rosary, Irish. They had the 
careless air of i^oor devils. On enter- 
ing, they had crouched down together 
on some boxes at the foot of the mast. 
They conversed; Irish and Basque, 
as we have said, are kindred tongues. 
The Basque woman’s hair smelled of 
onions and basil. The master of the 
ork was a Guipuscoan Basque ; one 
sailor was a Basque of the north slope 
of the Pyrenees, the other a Basque of 
the south slope, that is to say, of the 
same nation, though nominally the 
former was a Frenchman and the latter 
a Spaniard. The Basques do not recog- 
nize the official division. Mi madre se 
Henna montana^ “ My mother’s name is 
mountain,” said the muleteer Zalarens. 
Of the five men accompanying the two 
women, one was a Frenchman of Lan- 
guedoc, one a Frenchman of Provence, 
one from Genoa, one, the old fellow 
who had the hat without a pipe-hole, 
seemed to he a German, the fifth, their 
leader, was a Basque from the moc^s of 
Biscarossa. It was he who, at the mo- 
ment when the child was going to 
enter the ork, had kicked the foot- 
bridge into the sea. This man, stout, 
fidgetty, quick in his movements, cov- 
ered, it will be remembered, with em- 
broideries, spangles, and tinsel that 
made his rags shine, could not keep in 
one place, stooped, rose again, went 
and came unceasingly from one end of 
the craft to the other, as if distracted 
between what he had just done and 
what was going to happen. 

This leader of the band, and the mas- 
ter of the ork and the two men of the 
crew, all four Basques, spoke now 
Basque, now Spanish, and then again 
French, all these tongues prevailing on 
the two slopes of the Pyrenees. The 
others, except the woman, spoke some- 
thing like French, which was the staple 
of their slang. At this time the French 
tongue was beginning to bo chosen by 
the nations as a medium between the 


preponderance of consonants at the 
North and the preponderance of vow- 
els at the South. Business men in 
Europe talked French ; so did thieves. 
It may be remembered that the London 
robber, Gibby, understood Cartouche. 

The ork was a good sailer and went 
at a good rate; nevertheless, ten per- 
sons with their baggage made a heavy 
cargo for so small a craft. 

This saving of a troop by the vessel 
did not necessarily imply the affiliation 
of the crew with the troop. It sufficed 
that the master of the vessel was a Vas- 
congardoj and the leader of the band 
another. With this race, mutual as- 
sistance is a duty admitting no excep- 
tion. A Basque, we have just said, is 
neither French nor Spanish, he is 
Basque, rind bound to save another 
Basque, always and everywhere. Such 
is the brotherhood of the Pyrenees. 

All the time that the ork was in the 
gulf, the sky, though it had an awk- 
ward look, was not angry enough to 
disturb the fugitives or occupy their at- 
tention. They were running away, 
they were escaping, they were brutally 
gay. One laughed, another sang. The 
laugh was dry but unrestrained, the 
song low but careless. 

The Languedocian cried, Caoueagno / 
“Cockaigne” expresses the height of 
satisfaction in Narbonne. He was a 
half-sailor, native of the maritime vil- 
lage of Gruissan, on the south slope, a 
sea-going man rather than a seaman, 
but clever in handling the scows of the 
pond at Bages, and drawing up on the 
dark sands of Saint Lucia the drag-net 
full of fish. He was one of that race 
who wear red caps, make complicated 
signs of the cross, Spanish fashion, 
drink wine from goat-skins, squeeze the 
sack, scrape the ham-bone, kneel down 
to swear, and invoke their patron saints 
with a threat: Great Saint, grant me 
what I ask, or I’ll throw a stone at 
your head, “ou t6 feg’ un pic.” Ho 


SE^ AND NIGHT. 


miglit, at need, be a useful addition to 
the crew. 

The Provengal, in the galley, was 
making up a turf-fire under an iron pot, 
and cooking the soup. 

This soup was a sort of puchero^ in 
which fish replaced the meat, and the 
Provencal kept throwing into it small 
peas, little square bits of salt pork, and 
cloves of red pepper, concessions made 
by the bouillabaisse eater to the olla- 
podrida eaters. By his side was one of 
the provision-bags, unpacked. Over 
his head he had lighted an iron lantern 
with talc sides, that swung from the 
galley ceiling. Alongside it was sus- 
pended, on another hook, the kingfisher 
weathercock. It was then a popular 
belief that a dead kingfisher, hung up 
by the beak, always turned his breast 
to windward. 

"While he went on making the soup, 
the Provencal occasionally put the stem 
of a gourd to his mouth and swallowed 
a mouthful of brandy. It was one of 
those wicker-covered gourds, broad and 
flat, with handles, which were hung 
from the side by a strap and then called 
“hip-gourds.” Between each swallow 
he mumbled a couplet of one of those 
country songs the subject of which is 
just nothing; a hoUow road, a hedge; 
you see in the meadow, through an 
opening in the thicket, the lengthened 
shadow of a horse and cart in the set- 
ting sun, and from time to time the end 
of the fork loaded with hay appears 
and disappears above the hedge. No 
more is requii*ed to make a song. 

A departure relieves or overwhelms, 
according to what is on the heart or 
the brain. All seemed relieved except 
one, who was the patriarch of the band, 
the man with the pipeless hat. 

This old man, who seemed German 
more than any thing else, although he 
had one of those faces in the depths of 
which nationality is lost, was bald, and 
so grave that his baldness seemed a 


tonsure. Every time he passed before 
the Virgin at the bow, he lifted his felt 
hat, disclosing the swollen veins of his 
aged head. A sort of large cloak, of 
brown Dorchester serge, worn and 
torn, in which he was wrapped, only 
half hid his body coat, light, narrow, 
and hooked up to the collar like a cas- 
sock. His two hands were always 
coming together, joining mechanically, 
as if accustomed to prayer. IIo had 
what might be called a white look, for 
looks are above all a reflection of the 
mind, and it is an error to suppose that 
ideas have no color. 

This look was evidently the surface 
of a strange interior, result of a medley 
of contradictions, tending some to good, 
others to evil. To an observing mind 
it was the revelation of an imperfect 
humanity, which might fall below the 
tiger or rise above the man. Such cha- 
otic souls exist. There was something 
in this face that could not be deci- 
phered, a very essence of secrecy. 
This man had evidently known the 
calculating foretaste and the blank 
after-taste of guilt. On his impassive- 
ness, perhaps only apparent, were im- 
printed the signs of two ossifications, 
that of the heart, belonging to the exe- 
cutioner, and that of the mind, belong- 
ing to the mandarin. One might af- 
firm (for monstrosities have their way 
of being perfect) that every thing was 
possible to him, even an emotion. 
Every learned man has a little of the 
corpse in him ; this man was learned. 
Only by looking at him, you might de- 
tect the philosopher in the movements 
of his body and the folds of his cloak. 
His was a fossil face, yet the wrinkled, 
polyglottic mobility, which degenerates 
into grimace, marred its seriousness. 
Still it was severe; no hypocrisy, but 
no cynicism. The man was a tragic 
dreamer, whom crime had left pensive. 
He had a bandit’s eyebrows softened by 
an arclibishop’s eyes. Ilis scanty gray , 


43 


UNQUIET MEN ON 

hairs were white on tlie temples. You 
perceived in him the Christian modified 
by Turkish fatalism. Chalk-stones de- 
formed his skeleton fingers ; he was 
ridiculously tall, but had good sea-legs, 
lie walked slowly on the deck, with an 
air of sombre conviction, looking at no 
one. The gleam of his eyeballs, fixed yet 
vague, revealed a soul that watched the 
gloom, without escaping the pricks of 
conscience. 

Frorn^time to time the leader of the 
band, abrupt and alert, zigzagging 
swiftly through the vessel, came to 
whisper in his ear. The old man re- 
plied by a nod. It was like the light- 
ning consulting thl3 night. 

III. 

UNQUIET MEN ON AN UNQUIET SEA. 

Two persons in the vessel, the old 
man and the master of the ork (who 
must not be confounded with the lead- 
er of the troop), were entirely occu- 
pied, the master with the sea, the old 
man with the sl^vv. The eyes of the 
one never quitted the waves, the other 
kept watching the clouds. The be- 
hawor of the water caused the cap- 
tain’s anxiety ; the old man seemed to 
suspect the heavens. He watched the 
stars through every opening in the 
clouds. 

It was the moment when it is still 
light, and a few stars begin to twinkle 
feebly in the evening sky. 

The horizon had a singular aspect, 
with different sorts of mist. 

The fog was chiefly over the land, 
the clouds mostly over the sea. 

Even before emerging from Portland 
bay, the master, anxious about the sea, 
had gone through a long series of ma- 
noeuvres. He did not wait till he had 
rounded the point. He examined the 
braces, satisfied himself that the stays 
of the lower shrouds were in good or- 
der, and held taut the futtock-shrouds. 


AN 4JNQUIET SEA*- 

precautions which showed the daring 
of a man bent on speed. 

The defect of the ork was that it 
drew more water forward than aft. 

Tlie master moved every moment 
from the sailing to the variation com- 
pass, sighting all the objects along tlie 
coast, for the purpose of finding to 
what point of the card they corre- 
sponded. A breeze on the bowline 
first showed itself; he did not seem 
vexed at this, though it varied five 
points froin their course. Most of 
the* time he held the tiller himself, as 
if he could only trust himself to lose 
no momentum, the effects of the rud- 
der being commensurate with the ra- 
pidity of headway. 

The difference between the true and 
the apparent rhumb being greater in 
proportion as the vessel has more 
speed, the ork seemed to make more 
way to windward than she really did. 
She was not going very close to the 
wind; bu^ to .know the true rhumb 
accurately you must go before the 
wind. If we see in the clouds long 
streaks, ending in the same point of 
the horizon, that point is the source 
of the wind; but that evening there 
were several winds, and the point of 
the rhumb was doubtful, so that the 
master mistrusted these illusory indi- 
cations. 

He steered cautiously, yet boldly, 
braced up to the wind, kept sharp 
watch for sudden shifts, would not let 
the vessel come up in the wind, noted 
the lee-way, observed little jerks of 
the tiller, had an eye on all the inci- 
dents of the vessel’s motion, all tlie 
variations of their headway, kept con- 
stantly, for fear of accidents, some 
points clear of the land that he wqs 
coasting, above all, made the angle of 
the vane with the keel larger than the 
angle of the sails, the wind-line indi- 
cated by the compass being always 
doubtful, owing to the small size of. 


44 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


the instrument. His eyes, immovably 
cast down, examined every change of 
the deep. 

Once, however, he lifted them into 
space, and tried to see the three 
stars in Orion’s belt; these stars are 
called the Three Magi, and an old 
proverb of the old Spanish pilots says : 
“ He who sees the Three Magi is not 
far from the Saviour.” 

This glance of the master toward 
heaven coincided with a grumbling 
aside of the old man at the other end 
of the vessel. 

— "We cannot even see the Claire 
des Gardes or Antares, red as he is. 
Not a star is distinct. 

No anxiety among the other fugi- 
tives. 

Nevertheless, when the first joy of 
escape was over, they could not help 
perceiving that they were at sea in the 
month of January, and that the gale 
was icy cold. Impossible to stow 
themselves in the cabin, much too nar- 
row, and, moreover, encumbered with 
baggage and bales. The baggage be- 
longed to the passengers, the bales to 
the crew, for the ork was nof a pleas- 
ure-vessel, she was a smuggler. The 
passengers had to establish themselves 
on deck; such wanderers were easily 
resigned to it. Out-door habits’ sim- 
plify the night arrangements of vaga- 
bonds ; the open air is their friend ; 
the cold helps them to sleep, some- 
times to die. ‘ 

The Languedocian and the Genoese, 
while waiting for supper, rolled them- 
selves up near the women at the foot 
of the mast, on tarpaulins, which the 
-sailors threw to them. 

The bald old man stood in,the bow, 
immovable and seemingly insensible to 
the cold. 

The master of the ork uttered, from 
the tiller "where he stood, a sort of gut- 
tural summons not unlike the cry of 
tlie bird called in America the Ex- 


claim er; at this interjection, the leader 
of the troop and the master thus apos- 
trophized him : Etclieco jauna. These 
two Basque words, which* mean “la- 
borer of the mountain,” are, among 
these antique Cantabrians, a solemn 
formula for entering on business. 

Then the master pointed out the 
old man to the leader with his finger, 
and the dialogue continued in Spanish, 
not entirely correct, as it was moun- 
tain-Spanish : . . 

Etcheco jauna, que es est hombre?* 
Hn hombre. 

Que lenguas habla ? 

Todas. 

Que cosas sabe ? 

Todas. 

Qual pais ? 

Ningun y todos. 

Qual Dios ? 

Dios.*' 

Como le llamas ? 

El Tonto. 

Como dices que le llamas ? 

El Sabio. 

En vuestra tropa que esta ? 

Esta lo que esta. 

El gefe ? 

No. 

Pues que esta ? 

La alma. 

The leader and the master separated, 

* La'borer'of the mountain, who is this man ? 

A man. 

What tongues speaks he ? 

All. 

What things knows he ? 

All. 

What country ? 

None and all. 

What God ? 

God. 

How do you call him ? 

The madman. 

'How do you say you call him ? 

The sage. 

What is he in your hand ? 

He is what he is. 

The chief? 

No. 

• What then is he ? 

The soul. 


A CLOUD COMES UPON THE SCENE. 


45 


each returning to his own train of 
ideas, and soon after the Matutina is- 
sued from the gulf. The great undula- 
tions of the open sea began. 

"Where the ocean was free from foam 
it had a sticky appearance ; the waves, 
losing their sharp edges in the twilight, 
looked like puddles of gall. Here and 
there a flattened billow showed cracks 
and stars, like a window at which 
stones had been thrown. At the centre 
of these stars, in eddying apertures, 
trembled a phosphorescence which re- 
called the cat-like after-gleam of de- 
parted light in the screech-owl’s eyes. 

Proudly and like a stout swimmer, 
the Matutina crossed the. dangerous 
vibration of Chambers bank. Cham- 
bers bank, a hidden obstacle at the en- 
trance of Portland roads, is not a bar, 
but an amphitheatre. A circus of sand 
under water, benches carved by the 
rolling waves, an arena round and sym- 
metrical, round as the Jungfrau, but 
submerged, an ocean Coliseum of 
which the diver has glimpses in the 
moments of his plunge — such is Cham- 
bers bank. Hydras fight there, levia- 
thans meet there.* there, say the le- 
gends, at the bottom of the gigantic 
funnel, lie the carcasses of ships seized 
and sunk by the huge spider-kraken, 
called also the mountain-fish. Such is 
this frightful ghoul of the sea. 

These spectral realities, unknown by 
man, show themselves at the surface by 
a slight shiver. 

In the nineteenth century. Chambers 
bank is a ruin. The breakwater re- 
cently constructed has upset and cut 
down, by the surf it causes, this lofty 
specimen of submarine architecture, just 
as the pier built at Croisic, in 1760, 
altered by a quarter of an hour the 
tidal computation there. Yet the tide 
is eternal ; but eternity obeys man more 
than is commonly supposed. 


IV. 

A CLOUD, DIFFEEENT FEOM THE OTHEES, 
COMES UPON THE SCENE. 

The old man, whom the leader of 
the band had at first called a mad- 
man, and then a sage, did not leave the 
bow anymore. Since passing over the 
Chambers bank, his attention had 
been divided between the sky and the 
sea. He lowered his eyes ; then he 
raised them. What he looked at most 
closely was the northeast. 

The master gave up the tiller to a 
seaman, strode over the hatch of the 
cable-tier, traversed the gangway, and 
came upon the forecastle. 

He made up to the old man, but not 
fronting him. He kept himself a little 
in his rear, with elbows stuck into his 
hips, hands spread out, head bent 
down upon his shoulder, eye opened, 
eyebroW elevated, a corner of the lips 
smiling — which is the bearing of curi- 
osity, when it vacillates between irony 
and respect. 

The old man — it may be that he was 
in the habit of talking sometimes when 
alone ; it may be that feeling some one 
behind him induced him to speak — be- 
gan to talk to himself as he scanned 
the distance. 

— The meridian, whence one reck- 
ons the true ascension, is marked in 
this age by four stars, the Polar, Cassi- 
opea’s chair, Andromeda’s head, and 
the star Algenib that is in Pegasus. 
But’no one of these is visible. 

These words succeeded each other 
involuntarily, confused, scarcely spoken 
out, and as though he had nothing to 
do with 'pronouncing them. ■ They 
floated out of his mouth, and were 
lost. The monologue is the smoke of 
the mind’s internal fires. 

The master broke in : 

— Seignior ! 


46 


3EA AND NIGHT. 


The old man, perhaps a little deaf 
as well as very pensive, continued : 

— NTot enough stars and too much 
wind. The wind always leaves its 
course, to throw itself upon the 
coast. It flings itself there perpen- 
dicularly. This is because the land is 
warmer than the sea. Its air is lighter. 
The cold and heavy sea-wind precipi- 
tates itself on the land, to take its 
place. This is why, in the open sky, 
the wind blows toward the land from 
all si^es. It would he important to 
make lengthened tacks between the es- 
timated and the presumed parallels. 
When the latitude by observation does 
not ditfer from the presumed latitude 
more than three minutes in ten leagues, 
and four in twenty, one is on a fair 
course. 

The master bowed, but the old man 
did not notice him. This personage, who 
wore what resembled a university gown 
of Oxford or Gottingen, did not budge 
from his haughty or stubborn attitude. 
He looked upon the sea, as a connois- 
seur of the waters and of men. He 
studied the waves, but almost as though 
he were about to seek in their tumult 
for the turn of his words, and to impart 
something to them. There was in him a 
touch of the pedagogue and of the seer, 
lie had the air of a pedant of the abyss. 

He pursued his soliloquy, uttered 
perhaps, after all, to be listened to. 

— One might struggle on, if there 
were a wheel instead of a tiller. At 
the rate of four leagues an hour, thirty 
pounds of weight upon the wheel can 
produce three hundred thousand pounds 
of effect upon the direction. And more 
still, for there are occasions when one 
can make two additional turns. 

The master bowed a second time, and 
said ; 

— Seignior. . . . 

The old man’s eye fixed itself upon, 
him. The head turned, without the 
body moving. 


— Call me doctor. 

— Seignior doctor, it is I who am the 
captain. 

— So be it ! replied the doctor. 

The doctor — we shall call him thus 
henceforward — appeared willing to 
talk. 

'—Have you an English octant? 

— Ho. 

— Without an English octant, you 
cannot take an altitude at either end. 

— The Basques, replied the master, 
took soundings before there were any 
Englishmen. 

— Don’t trust to springing your luff. 

— I ease away when necessary. 

— Have you measured the vessel’s 
speed ? 

— Yes. 

— When ? 

T— Just now. 

— By what means ? 

— By means of the log. 

— Were you careful in keeping 
your eye upon the reel ? 

— Yes. 

— Does the sand-glass make exactly 
its thirty seconds ? 

—Yes. 

— Are you sure that the sand has 
not worn the aperture between the two 
globes ? 

— Yes. 

— Have you tested the sand-glass by 
the vibration of a musket-ball suspend- 
ed to a spun-yarn drawn from above 
the soaked hemp ? 

— Certainly. 

— Did you wax the spun-yarn, for 
fear that it might stretch ? 

— Yes. 

— Have you made a counterproof of 
the log ? 

— I have made a counterproof of 
the sand-glass by the musket-ball, and 
a counterproof of the log by the can- 
non-ball. 

— What diameter had your ball? 

— A foot. 


A CLOUD COMES UPON THE SCENE. 


47 


— Good weight ? 

— It is an old cannon-ball of our old 
war-ork, the Casse de Par-grand. 

— That was in the Armada ? 

— Yes. 

— And that carried six hundred sol- 
diers, fifty seamen, and twenty-five 
guns ? 

— The wreck knows all that. 

— How have you estimated the force 
of the water acting against the ball ? 

— By means of a German steelyard. 

— Have you made allowance for the 
impulsion of the wave against the cord 
to which the ball is attached ? 

— Yes. 

— With what result? 

— The force of the water was a hun- 
dred and seventy pounds. 

— That is to say that the vessel 
makes four Trench leagues an hour. 

— And three Dutch leagues. 

— But that is only the surplus of the 
speed of the wake over the speed of 
the vessel. 

— Assuredly. 

— Where are you steering? 

— For a creek that I am acquainted 
with, between Loy'da and St. Sebas- 
tian. 

— Put yourself as quickly as you can 
on the parallel of the place to which 
■you are bound. 

— Yes. The least possible falling 
off. 

— Mistrust the winds and the cur- 
rents. The former provoke the latter. 

— The traitors ! 

— No abuse! The sea can hear. 
Insult nothing. Be satisfied with watch- 
ing. 

— I have watched, and I do watch. 
The tide is at present against the wind; 
but soon, when it will run with the 
wind, we shall have an improvement. 

Have you got a set of charts ? 

— No ; not for these waters. 

— Then you grope your way as you 
navigate ? 


— No; I have the compass. 

— The compass is one eye ; the book 
of charts is the other. 

— A ma%, blind of one eye, sees. 

— How do you measure the angle 
that the vessel’s course makes with the 
keel? 

— I have my compass of variation, 
and then I guess. 

— Guessing is well ; knowing is bet- 
ter. 

— Columbus guessed. 

— When there is a constant shifting, 
and when the card in the compass-box 
turns about balefully, one knows no 
longer what to do with the wind, and 
the end of it is having no estimated 
point, and no corrected one. An ass 
that knows his way is worth more than 
a diviner with his oracle. 

— There is none of this shifting in 
the northeaster yet ; and I see no ground 
for alarm. 

— Ships are flies in the spider-web 
of the sea. 

— Fbr the moment all is well enough 
in sea and wind. 

— A tremor of black points upon the 
flood ; such is man upon the ocean. 

— I do not look forward to any thing 
bad for to-night. 

— There may come such inky dark- 
ness, that you will be troubled to get 
out of the mess. 

— So far, all goes well. 

The doctor’s eye fixed itself upon the 
northeast. 

The master continued : 

— Let us only get into the Bay of 
Biscay, and I answer for every thing. 
Ah ! yes, indeed, I am at home there. 
I have it fast, my Bay of Biscay ! It is 
a hand-basin often in a terrible fume ; 
but I know all its depths of water, and 
all the nature of its bottom : mud be- 
fore San Cipriano, shell before Cizarque, 
sand off Cape Penas, small pebbles at 
Boucaut de Mimizan ;' and I can distin- 
guish the color of all the pebbles. 


4 


48 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


The master stopped ; the doctor was 
no longer listening. 

The doctor was looking steadily at 
the northeast. Something more than 
ordinary passed across that icy visage. 
All the terror conceivable upon a mask 
of stone was there depicted. His mouth 
dropped out this expression : 

— Well and good! 

The pupil of his eye, become all at 
once that of the owl, and quite round, 
dilated with stupefaction, as he seemed 
to probe a point in the dista,nce. 

He added : 

— It is right. For my part, I am 
willing. 

The master looked at him. 

The doctor resumed, speaking to him- 
self, or to some one in the void : 

— I say yes. 

He was silent ; opened his eyes wider 
and wider, redoubling his attention to 
what he saw ; then continued : 

— It comes from a long way off ; but 
what it will do, nobody knows but 
itself. 

The segment of space, whereinto the 
eye and the thought of thedocfor were, 
plunged, being opposite the west, was 
illuminated by the ample reflection of 
twilight, almost as by day. This seg- 
ment, very circumscribed and surround- 
ed by patches of grayish vapor, was 
entirely blue ; but the blue was leaden, 
not azure. 

The doctor, turned altogether to the 
side of the sea, and without looking 
further at the captain, pointed out 
v'ith his forefinger this airy segment, 
and said: 

] — Do you see that? 

■ —What? 

, — That. 

— What? 

— Away there, 
j— The blue? Yes. 

' — What is it ? 

— A bit of sky . 

— For those who are going to heaven, 


said the doctor. For those who are 
going elsewhere, it is something else. 

And he emphasized these enigmatical 
words with a fearful look, lost in the 
obscurity. 

There was silence. 

The master, reverting to the double 
estimate put upon this man by the 
leader, debated within himself this ques- 
tion : Is he a madman ? Is he a sage ? 

The doctor’s bony and rigid fore- 
finger remained at point, as though 
fixed there, toward the blue and over- 
cast bit of the horizon. 

The master examined this blue. 

— In fact, muttered he to himself, it 
is not sky ; it is cloud. 

— Blue cloud worse than black cloud, 
said the doctor ; and he added : 

— It is the cloud of the snow. 

— La nube de la nieve^ said the mas- 
ter, as if he sought to understand the 
phrase better by translating it to him- 
self. 

— Do you know what the cloud of 
the snow is ? asked the doctor. 

. —No. 

— You will know before long. 

The master betook himself again to 
studying the horizon. All the while 
that he was observing the cloud, the 
master spoke between his teeth. 

— A month of squalls, a month of 
rain, January coughing, and Febru- 
ary crying; that’s the whole winter 
for us Asturians. Our rain is warm. 
We have snow only in the mountains. 
Ay, indeed, look out for the avalanche ! 
The avalanche knows nothing what- 
ever. The avalanche is a beast. 

— And the whirlwind of snow is a 
monster, said the doctor. 

The doctor, after a pause, added : 

— Look, here it comes ! 

He resumed : 

— Several winds are setting them- 
selves to work at the same time ; a hard 
wind from the west, and a slow-blow- 
ing wind from the east. 


A CLOUD COMES UPON THE SCENE. 


49 


— That one is a hypocrite, said the 
master. 

The blue clond grew bigger. 

— If the snow, continued the doctor, 
is formidable when it descends from 
the mountain, judge what it is when 
it hurls itself down from the pole. 

His eye was glassy. The cloud 
seemed to be increasing upon his coun- 
tenance, as it was upon the horizon. 

He went on, as though in a reverie : 

— Every minute brings on the hour. 
The will from on high is revealing it- 
self. 

The master again put this question 
to himself internally: Is he a mad- 
man? 

— Captain, asked the doctor, his eye 
all the time fixed upon the cloud, have 
you navigated much in the Channel ? 

The master answered: 

— To-day is the first time. 

The doctor, who was absorbed in the 
blue cloud, and who, as a sponge can 
only hold so much water and no more, 
could only feel a certain amount of 
anxiety, was not moved by this reply 
of the master, beyond a very slight 
shrugging of his shoulders. 

— How so ? ' 

— Seignior doctor, my voyages are 
generally to Ireland. I sail from 
Fontarabia to Black Harbor, or to 
Akill Island, which is two islands. I 
go sometimes to Bractipult, which is a 
point in Wales. But I steer always 
above the SciUy Islands. I am not 
acquainted with this sea. 

— That is serious. Unfortunate he, 
who spells out the ocean. The Chan- 
nel is a sea that must be read off-hand. 
The Channel — it is the sphinx. Be- 
ware of its bottom. 

— We are in twenty-five fathoms 
here. 

— You must get into the fifty-five 
fathoms that are to the westward, and 
keep clear of the twenty that are to 
the eastward. 


— We will sound as wo go. 

— The Channel is not a sea like any 
other. The rise and fall is fifty feet at 
spring, and twenty-five at neap-tides. 
High-water fiood is not low-water 
ebb. Ah! you look as though you 
were disconcerted. 

— To-night we will sound. 

— For sounding, you must lay-to; 
and you will not be able. 

— Why?' 

— On account of the wind, 

— Wo will try. 

^Tho hurricane is a sword in the 
reins. 

— We will sound. Seignior doctor. 

— You will not be able even to 
bring-to. 

— Trust in God. 

— Prudence in words! Pronounce 
not lightly the irritable name. 

— I shall sound, I tell you. 

— Be diffident. You are soon going 
to be cuffed by the wind. 

— I ^ean that I shall try to sound. 

— The rush of the water will pre- 
vent the lead from going down, and 
the line will break. Ah ! this is your 
first visit to these latitudes ? 

— The first. 

— Well, in that case, listen, captain ! 

The accentuation of this word, “ lis- 
ten,” was so imperative, that the mas- 
ter bowed. 

— Seigm'or doctor, I am listening. 

— Haul on board your larboard 
sheets, and stand"* off to starboard. 

— What do you mean ? 

— Stand to the west ! 

— Caramba ! 

— Stand to the west ! 

— Not possible. 

— As you please. What I tell you 
is for the others. For myself, I ac- 
cept. 

— But, Seignior doctor, standing in 
to the west. . . 

— Yes, captain. 

— Is the wind in one’s teeth. 


50 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


— Yes, captain. 

— Is the devil’s own pitching. 

— Choose other words! Yes, cap- 
tain. 

— It is the vessel on the rack. 

— Yes, captain. 

— It is, perhaps, the mast carried 
away. 

— Perhaps. 

— Yon want me to steer to the 
west ? 

— Yes. 

— I cannot. 

— In that case, battle it out with 
the sea as you please. 

— It would he necessary to have a 
change of wind. 

— It will not change, all night. 

— -Why? 

— This is a blast twelve hundred 
leagues long. 

— Beat against this wind ? Impossi- 
ble. 

— Steer westward, I tell you. 

— I will try. But, in spite of 
every thing, we shall fall to leeward. 

. — There’s the danger. 

— The gale drives us to the east. 

— Do not go to the east ! 

— Why? 

— Captain, are you aware what for 
us is the name of death, in these days ? 

— No. 

— Death is called the East. t " 

— I will steer to the west. 

The doctor, this time, looked at the 
master and looked at him with a look 
that bears hard, as though to drive 
home an idea into a brain. He had 
turned entirely round to the master, 
and he uttered these words slowly, 
syllable by syllable : 

— If, to-night, when we are in mid- 
water, we hear the sound of a bell, the 
vessel is lost. 

The master looked at him, stupe- 
fied. 

— What do you mean? 

The doctor made no reply. His 


look, one instant gone forth from him, 
had now reentered. His eye had 
again become introspective. He did 
not seem to take in the master’s star- 
tled question. He was now only at- 
tentive to that which he listened to 
within himself. His lips articulated, 
as if mechanically, these few words, 
low as a murmur : 

— The moment is come for black 
souls to wash themselves. 

The master made the expressive 
wry face, that brings all the lower part 
of the countenance up toward the nose. 

— He is more of madman than of 
sage, grumbled he. 

And he walked away. 

Nevertheless he laid his course for 
the west. 

But the wind and the sea were get- 
ting up. 

t 

nAEDQTTANOIWTE. 

Shapeless, in all sorts of swellings, 
the fog gathered at once upon every 
point of the horizon, as though invisi- 
ble mouths were occupied in puffing up 
the leather bags - of the tempest. The 
form of the clouds became threatening. 

The blue cloud held all the lower part 
of the sky. There was as much of it 
now in the west, as in the east. It 
worked up against the gale. These con- 
tradictions belong to the law of winds. 

The sea, which, a moment before, 
had scales, now had a skin. Such is 
this dragon. It was no longer the croc- 
odile ; it was the boa. This skin, livid 
and foul, appeared thick, and wrinkled 
itself heavily. At the surface, bubbles 
of spume, isolated and resembling pus- 
tules, rounded themselves, then burst. 
The scum was like leprosy. 

It was at this instant that the ork, 
still visible in the distance to the child 
left behind, lighted up its signal-light. 

A quarter of an hour passed away. 


THEY THINK THEY OBTAIN HELP. 


51 


The master cast his eyes about in 
search of the doctor. He was no 
longer on deck. 

Immediately on the master leaving 
him, the doctor had stooped his incon- 
venient height under the companion- 
way, and had gone into the cabin. 
There he seated himself near the stove, 
upon a block. He drew from his pocket a 
shagreen inkhorn, and a Spanish-leath- 
er portfolio. He took out of the port- 
folio a piece of parchment with four 
folds, old, spotted, and yellow. He 
smoothed out the parchment, took a 
pen from the pen-holder of his ink- 
horn, laid the portfolio flat upon his 
knee, and the parchment on the port- 
folio, and began to write upon the sec- 
ond side of the parchment, making use 
of the light that came from the cook’s 
lantern. The motion caused by the sea 
troubled him. The doctor wrote a long 
time. As he Avrote, he remarked the 
gourd-bottle of aguardiente, that the 
Proven9al tasted each time that he put 
spice into the lobscouse, as though he 
consulted it as to the seasoning. 

The doctor noticed this gourd, not 
because it was a bottle of brandy, but 
on account of a name woven in the 
wicker-work, in red withes upon the 
black withes. There was light enough 
in the cabin to read this name. 

Pausing in his work, the doctor 
spelled it to himself in low tone : 

— Hardquanonne. 

Then he turned to the cook : 

— I had not previously noticed this 
gourd. Did it belong to Hardqua- 
nonne ? 

— To our poor comrade Hardqua- 
nonne? said the cook. Yes. 

The doctor went on : 

— To Hardquanonne, the Fleming 
from Flanders ? 

— Y^es. 

— Who is in prison ? 

— Yes. 

— In the strong keep at Chatham? 


— It is his gourd, replied the cook, 
and he was my friend. I keep it as a 
souvenir of him. When shall wo see him 
again ? Yes, it was the gourd ho car- 
ried slung about him. 

The doctor took up his pen again, and 
began, with difficulty, tracing lines, 
somewhat irregular, upon the parch- 
ment. He was evidently taking pains 
that they should be quite legible. Not- 
withstanding the trembling of the ves- 
sel and his trembling from age, he got 
to the end of what he wished to write. 

It was time, for suddenly there was 
a shock of a wave ; a very heavy sea 
struck the Ork, and that sort of shiver- 
ing began to be perceptible, with which 
vessels welcome the tempest. 

The doctor got up, approached the 
stove, all the while bending his knees 
adroitly at each abrupt pitch or roll, 
dried at the fire the lines he had just 
written, refolded the parchment in the 
portfolio, and replaced the portfolio and 
the writing apparatus in his pocket. 

Th'e stove was not the least ingenious 
bit of the ork’s furniture down below. 
It stood well, by itself. Nevertheless, 
the seething-pot rocked. The Proven- 
cal watched it. 

— Fish-soup, said he. 

— For the fishes, replied the doctor. 
Then he went again upon deck. 

VI. 

THEY THINK THEY OBTAIN HELP. 

In the midst of his increasing preoc- 
cupation, he passed as it were under 
review the circumstances of the case ; 
and any one who had been near him 
might have heard these words fall from 
his lips : — Too much rolling, and not 
enough pitching. 

And the doctor, recalled by the dark 
laboring of his mind, went down again 
into his thoughts as a miner into his 
mine. But this meditating in no way 


52 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


hindered his observation of the sea. 
Gazing upon the sea is a reverie. 

The sombre chastisement of the wa- 
ters, eternally tormented, was about to 
begin. A lamenting voice went up out 
of all this waste. Preparatives, dole- 
ful and confused, were being made in 
immensity. The doctor studied what 
was under his eye, and lost not one 
of its details. Otherwise, there was 
nothing of contemplation in his look. 
One does not contemplate hell. 

A vast commotion, still half latent, 
though plain enough in the troubled 
distance, accentuated and aggravated 
more and more the wind, the mists, the 
surgings. Nothing is so logical as the 
ocean, nothing more absurd. This in- 
congruity with itself is inherent in its 
sovereignty, and is one of the elements 
of its amplitude. The wave is, without 
ceasing, for and against. It coils itself 
up, only to uncoil itself. One of its 
swashes attacks, another delivers. No 
sight like that of the billows. How 
paint those alternated and scarcely act- 
ual hollows and reliefs, those valleys, 
those hammocks, those heavings of the 
breast, those rough outlines? How 
express those thickets of foam, made 
' up of mountain and of dream? The in- 
describable is there, everywhere, in the 
racking to pieces, in the frowning, in 
the restlessness, in the perpetual con- 
tradiction, in the lights and shadows, 
in the cradling of the clouds, in the 
vaulted key-stones forever displaced, in 
the disintegration without gap and 
without fracture, and in the funereal 
din that is made by all this frenzy. 

The wind came out due north. It 
was so favorable in its strength, and so 
fair for getting away from England, 
that the master of the Matutina de- 
cided to crowd her with canvas. The 
ork broke away in the foam as at a gal- 
lop, all sails spread, wind astern, bound- 
ing from wave to wave, with rage and 
glee. The fugitives, enraptured, laughed. 


They clapped their hands, and ap- 
plauded the rolling, the waves, the 
puffs of wind, the sails, the speed, the 
flight, the future unexplored. The 
doctor appeared not to see them, and 
was dreaming. 

Every trace of day was eclipsed. 

It was at this moment that the child, 
watching upon the distant cliffs, lost 
sight of the ork. Up to this time his 
look had remained flxed, and, as it 
were, dependent on the vessel. "What 
part had this look in destiny? At 
the instant when distance blotted out 
the ork, and when the child no longer 
saw anything, he went his way north- 
ward, while the ork stood on her course 
to the south. 

AU burying themselves in the night. 

YII. 

SAOEED HOEBOE. 

On their part, but with opened hearts 
and joyfulness, those whom the ork was 
carrying away saw the hostile ground 
recede and diminish behind them. Lit- 
tle by little the dark, round outline of 
the ocean grew higher, obscuring, in 
the twilight, Portland, Purbeck, Tine- 
ham, Kimmeridge, the two Mathavers, 
tbe long strips of misty cliff, and the 
coast marked out with light-houses. 

England became obliterated ; the fu- 
gitives had no longer any thing around 
them but the sea. 

All at once the night was terrible. 

There was no more distance or space. 
The sky was turned into blackness, 
and shut itself down upon the vessel. 
Slowly the fall of snow began. Some 
flakes appeared. One might have 
thought them souls. Nothing was 
longer visible on this the race-course 
of the wind. One felt one’s self deliv- 
ered over. Every thing i^ossible is 
th erei n — deception. 

It is by this cavernous obscurity that 


SACKED HOEEOE. 


53 


the polar whirlwind of snow makes its 
d6hut in our clime. 

A vast turbid cloud, like the under- 
bodj of a hydra, weighed upon the 
ocean, and in places this livid belly ad- 
hered to the waves. Where it adhered, 
there was the resemblance of pockets 
full of holes, exhaling vapor, and 
filling themselves with water. These 
suctions threw up, here and there upon 
the w'aves, cones of spume. 

The boreal hurricane threw itself 
upon the ork ; the ork flung up its heels 
therein. The gust and the vessel came 
together, as though to insult each other. 

In the first infuriate onset, not a sail 
was brailed up, not a jib was lowered, 
not a reef was taken in — so frenzied was 
the onward rush. The mast creaked and 
bent backward as though affrighted. 

Cyclones, in our northern hemisphere, 
work from right and left, like the hands 
of a watch, with a wliirling movement 
that equals sometimes sixty miles an 
hour. Though she was entirely at the 
mercy of this fierce rotatory assault, the 
ork behaved as though under control, 
with no other precaution than that of 
keeping herself upright, and of pre- 
senting her head to the first blast, 
while receiving another on her side, 
and avoiding another astern.. This 
quasi prudence would have served no 
purpose, in the event of the wind veer- 
ing suddenly from one quarter to the 
opposite. 

A hollow sound inflated an inacces- 
sible region. 

The bellowing of the abyss — ^nothing 
is comparable to this. It is the im- 
mense bestial voice of the world. 
What we call matter — that unfath- 
omable organism, that amalgamation 
of immeasurable energies wherein one 
sometimes recognizes an imperceptible 
amount of horrifying intention, that 
cosmos blind and nocturnal, that Pan 
incomprehensible — has a cry, a cry 
strange, prolonged, obstinate, contin- 


ued, which is less than the Word and 
more than thunder. This cry, it is the 
tempest. Other voices — songs, melo- 
dies, clamor, words — issue from nests, 
from . hatchings, from pairings, from 
marriages, from dwelling-places; this 
one, the whirlwind, issues from the 
Nothing which is All. Other voices 
express the soul of the universe ; this 
one tells of its monster. It is a 
shapeless howling. It is the iirarticu- 
late spoken by the indefinite. Fact, 
pathetic and full of terror! These 
noises carry on dialogues above and 
beyond man. They rise up, are low- 
ered, fluctuate, induce waves of sound, 
give rise to all sorts of indignant sur- 
prises in the mind, now burst forth close 
to our ears with the importuning of a 
flourish on trumpets, now have the 
husky hoarseness of the far-off-disor- 
dered hurly-burly that resembles a 
language, and that is a language in 
truth ; it is the effort that the world 
itself makes at speaking; it is the 
stamn^ering of prodigy. In this wail- 
ing, confusedly manifests itself all that 
an enormous sinister palpitation en- 
dures, undergoes, suffers, accepts, and 
rejects; most frequently, this wailing 
reasons falsely ; seems to be an access 
of chronic malady, is rather a wide- 
spread epilepsy than a force employed ; 
one imagines one’s self assisting at a 
fall from an epileptic fit into the in- 
finite. At intervals, one has^ glimpses 
of the reestablishment of 
order of things, one knoT^^ot ^what 
feeble attempt of chaos to reassert its 
sway over creation. At intervals, it is 
a complaint ; space laments and justi- 
fies itself, somewhat as though the 
cause of the world were being pleaded. 
One fancies that the universe is a law- 
suit. One listens, one tries to seize the 
reasons assigned, the tremendous for 
and against. Such groaning of the 
shades has the tenacity of a syllogism. 
Vast trouble for the thought! The 


54 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


cause of existence of mythologies and 
of polytheisms lies therein. To the 
tearfulness of these prodigious mur- 
murs are added superhuman profiles, 
vanishing away as soon as perceived, 
indistinct Eumenides, breasts of Furies 
outlined in the clouds, Platonian chime- 
ras partially defined. ISTo horror equals 
that of these sobs, these laughings, 
these waverings of hubbub, these ques- 
tions and these answers undecipher- 
able, these appeals to unknown auxili- 
aries. Man knows not what to make 
of himself in the presence of this awful 
incantation. He cowers under the enig- 
ma of these Draconian intonations. 
What meaning underlies them ? What 
signify they? What do they threat- 
en ? Whom do they supplicate ? There 
is, as it were, an unchaining. Vocifer- 
ations from precipice to precipice, from 
air to water, from wind to Avaves, from 
rain to rock, from zenith to nadir, 
from stars to foam, the muzzle taken 
oflT the abyss: such is this tumult, a 
complication of evil consciences with 
one knoAvs not what of mysterious dis- 
entanglenfent. 

The loquacity of the night is not less 
lugubrious than its silence. You feel 
therein the anger of the unknown. 

Night is a presence. Presence of 
whom ? 

This mist, mysterious and noctur- 
nal, is the struggling, the fleeting, the 
crumbling, the baleful. You feel the 
earth no jnore ; you are sensible of an- 
other reality. 

In the shadow, infinite and indefinite, 
there is something or some one, of the 
living ; but Avhat is living there is par- 
cel of our death. After our earthly 
passage, Avhen this shadow shall be a 
a light for us, the life which is beyond 
our life will take hold upon us. 
Awaiting this, it seems to be touching 
us. Darkness is a pressure. Night is 
a sort of hand laid upon our soul. At 
certain hours, hideous and solemn, we 


feel encroaching upon us that which 
lies behind the wall of the tomb. 

Never is this proximity of the un- 
known more palpable than in storms 
at sea. The horrible gains growth 
therein from the fantastic. The possi- 
ble interrupter of human actions, the 
ancient cloud-gatherer, has there at 
his disposal, for moulding the event at 
his good pleasure, an inconsistent ele- 
ment, an unlimited incoherence, force 
diffused without defined intention. 
This mystery, the tempest, accepts 
and executes, at every instant, one 
knows not what changes of will, ap- 
parent or real. 

Poets in all times have called this 
the caprice of the waves. 

But there is no caprice at all. 

Disconcerting’ occurrences that, in 
Nature, we call caprice, and, in des- 
tiny, chance, are fragments of a law 
seen imperfectly. 

VIII. 

NIX ET NOX. 

What characterizes the snow-whirl 
is that it is black. The habitual aspect 
of nature in a storm — earth or sea ob- 
scure, the sky Avan — ^is reversed; the 
heavens are black, the ocean is white. 
Below, foam ; above, darkness. An ho- 
rizon walled with smoke, a zenith ceiled 
with crape. The tempest is like the 
interior of a cathedral hung Avith mourn- 
ing. But there are no lights in this 
cathedral ; no St. Elmo fires upon the 
points of the Avaves ; no sparks ; noth- 
ing phosphoric; nothing but one im- 
mense shadow. The polar cyclone dif- 
fers from the tropical cyclone in this, 
that the one sets blazing aU the lights, 
and the other extinguishes them all. 
The Avorld becomes suddenly a cavern- 
vault. From this night falls a dust of pale 
specks, that hesitate between this sky 
and this sea. These specks, which are 


NIX ET NOX. 


55 


flakes of snow, glide, wander, float. It 
is almost as thougli the tears upon a 
winding-skeet should take to life and 
put themselves in motion. With this 
sowing a maddened blast commingles. 
A blackness in crumbs of white, the 
furious in the obscure, all the tumult 
whereof the sepulchre is capable, a tor- 
nado under a catafalque — such is the 
snow-storm. 

Beneath, trembles the ocean, masking 
formidable depths unknown. 

In the polar wind, which is electric, 
the flakes become immediately hail- 
stones, and the air is filled with pro- 
jectiles. The water crackles under the 
grape-spot. 

N'o thunder-claps. The lightning of 
•the Boreal hurricanes is silent. What 
one says sometimes of a cat — “she 
spits” — may he said of this lightning. 
It is the threat of a half-opened jaw, 
strangely inexorable. The snow-storm 
is a storm blind and dumb. When it 
is over, the ships are often blind and 
the sailors dumb. 

To get out of such a gulf is not easy. 

It would he a mistake, however, to 
suppose that shipwreck is absolutely 
inevitable. The Danish fishermen of 
Disco and of Balesin, the cruisers after 
black whales, Hearn going toward 
Behring’s Straits to examine the mouth 
of the Coppermine Eiver, Hudson, 
Mackenzie, Vancouver, Boss, Dumont- 
d’lJrville, experienced, at the Pole it- 
self, the most inclement snow-storms, 
and escaped from them. 

It was into a tempest of this sort that 
the ork had entered, under full sail and 
in triumph. Frenzy against frenzy. 
When Montgomery, stealing out of Rou- 
en, threw his galley at full speed of 
oars upon the chain barring the Seine at 
La Bouille, he had the same hardihood. 

The Matutina flew. Her laying over 
under canvas made at times, with the 
sea, a fearful angle of fifteen degrees ; 
but her good tun-bellied keel stuck to 


the water as though glued to it. The 
keel resisted all the pressure of the 
hurricane. The fire-cage lighted up the 
bow. The cloud charged to the full 
with blasts, spreading its tremor over 
the ocean, narrowed in and preyed upon 
the water round about the ork more and 
more. Hot a gull, not a cliff-swallow; 
nothing but the snow. The visible ex- 
tent of the waves, though small, was 
frightful. 

One saw but three or four, immeas- 
urable. 

From tii^e to time a vast flash of 
lightning, of the color of red copper, 
appeared behind what was obscurely 
piled from the horizon to the zenith. 
This vermilion widening set off the hor- 
ror of the clouds. The sudden light- 
ing up of the depths, upon which, during 
a second, stood out the foregrounds of 
the clouds and the distant summits of 
the celestial chaos, brought the abyss 
into perspective. On this fiery back- 
ground the flakes of snow became black, 
and they might have been called som- 
bre butterflies flying in a furnace. 

The first outburst over, tilie squall, 
ever chasing the ork, began to roar in 
continued bass. This is a phrase in 
rumbling, a fearful diminution of the 
hubbub. Hothing so disquieting as this 
monologue of the tempest. The gloomy 
recitative resembles a breathing-spell 
of the mysterious opposing forces, and 
indicates a sort of watchfulness in the 
unknown. 

The ork continued her headlong 
course. Her two principal sails ful- 
filled, above all, a terrific function. The 
sky and the sea were of ink, wnth jets 
of foam leaping higher than the mast. 
Every moment floods of water traversed 
the deck like a deluge; and at every 
lurch, whether to port or starboard, 
the scupper-holes became so many 
open mouths revomiting the spume to 
the sea. The women had taken refuge 
in the cabin : but the men remained on 


56 ‘ 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


deck. The blinding snow whirled in 
eddies ; the spittings of the wave-crests 
were added. All was in a state of 
fury. 

At this moment, the leader of the 
band, standing up, aft, on the transom, 
with one hand holding on to the 
shrouds, and with the other pulling off 
his cotton cap that he shook in the 
glimmer of the fire-cage, arrogant, hap- 
py, his face puffed with pride, intoxi- 
cated by all this gloom, cried out : 

— "We are free! 

— Free! free! free! repeated those 
who had escaped. 

And all the band, clutching the rig- 
ging, stood up on the deck. 

— Hurrah ! cried the chief. 

And the band howled in the tem- 
pest : 

— Hurrah ! 

At the instant when this clamor 
was drowned in the squalls, a voice, 
loud and solemn, was heard from the 
other end of the vessel. It said: Si- 
lence ! 

All the heads were turned to it. 

They had recognized the voice of 
the doctor. The darkness was thick. 
The doctor was leaning his back 
against the mast, with which his lean 
figure was blended; they did -not see 
him. 

The voice went on : 

— Hark ! 

All were hushed. 

Then was heard distinctly in the 
gloom the tolling of a bell. 

IX. 

A CHAEGE CONFIDED TO THE FHEIOTJS 
SEA. 

The master of the bark, who was 
at the tiller, broke out into a laugh. 
— Abell! That’s good. "We are driving 
to larboard. What does this bell 
prove? That we have land on our 
right hand. 


The firm and measured voice of the 
doctor answered : 

— You have not got land a-starboard. 

— But, yes ! cried the master. 

— Ho. 

— But this bell sounds from ashore. 

— This bell, said the doctor, sounds 
from the sea. 

There was a shudder among these 
hardy men. The haggard faces of two 
women appeared in the square of the 
cabin-hatchway, like two evil spirits 
evoked. The doctor made a step, and 
his tall, dark form detached itself from 
the mast. They heard the bell tolling 
in the depth of the night. 

The doctor resumed : 

— There is in the middle of the sea, 
half way between Portland and the 
Channel Islands, a buoy, placed there 
to give warning. This buoy is moored 
with chains to the bottom, and floats 
on a level with the water. On this 
buoy an iron trestle is fixed, and at its 
intersection a bell is hung. In heavy 
weather, the sea being shaken, shakes 
the buoy, and the bell rings. That bell 
is the one you hear. 

The doctor let a very heavy gust 
sweep by, waited till the sound of the 
bell was heard over all, and continued : 

— To hear this bell in a storm, when 
the whirlwind blows, is to be lost. 
Why ? Observe : if you hear the sound 
of the bell, it is the wind .that brings it 
to you. Now the wind comes from the 
west, and the breakers of Aurigny lie 
eastward. You can only hear the bell, 
because you are between the buoy and 
the breakers. It is on these breakers 
that the wind drives you. You are on 
the wrong side of the buoy. If you 
were on the right side, you would have 
ample sea-room, in a safe course, and 
you would not hear the beU. The 
wind would not bring you the sound. 
You would pass near the buoy, with- 
out knowing that it is there. W^'e are 
out of our course. The bell — ^it is 


STOKM 

Bhip-wreck sounding the tocsin. Now, 
make the best of it ! 

The bell, while the doctor was 
speaking, lowered in tone by a lull of 
the blasts, sounded slowly, stroke after 
stroke; and this intermittent tinkling 
seemed to be suggested by the old 
man’s words. It might have been 
termed the death-bell of the deep. 

Breathless, they all listened ; now to 
the voice, now to the bell. 

X. 

STOEM IS THE GEEAT SAVAGE. 

Neyeetheless, the master had seized 
his speaking-trumpet : — Gargate todo^ 
hombres ! Let fly the sheets ! Eowse 
in upon your down-haul ! Lower 
away the ties and brails of your 
courses ! Hug up to the west ! Let’s 
take more sea-room I Head for the 
buoy! Head for the bell! There’s 
sea-room away there ! All isn’t over ! 

— Try it, said the doctor. 

Let it be noted in passing, that this 
sounding-buoy, a sort of sea-bell, was 
suppressed in 1802. Yery old sailors 
remember having heard it. It gave 
warning, but somewhat late. 

The master’s order was obeyed. The 
Languedocian made a third sailor. 
Every one helped. They did better 
than brailing ; they furled. They taut- 
ened all the gaskets, they knotted the 
reef-points and bowlines; they put 
horse-irons on the stoops, which might 
thus serve as midship shrouds; they 
Ashed the mast; they nailed fast the 
port-lids, which is a way of walling-in 
the vessel. The manoeuvre, although 
executed with the yards peaked, was 
none the less successful. The ork, in 
fact, was brought down to a complete 
state of readiness. But in proportion 
as the craft, making all snug, grew as 
it were smaller, the turning upside 
down of air and water increased upon 


EAT SAVAGE. 57 

her. The height of the danger attained 
almost polar dimensions. 

The tempest, like an executioner who 
is hurried, took to quartering the ves- 
sel. There was, in the twinkling of 
an eye, a fearful wrenching of every 
thing, the topsails blown out of the 
bolt-ropes, the bulwarks cut down, the 
chess-trees thrown out of joint, the 
shrouds tangled in a heap, the mast 
sprung, all the hubbub of disaster fly- 
ing into pieces. The bigger ropes part- 
ed, although they had only four fathoms’ 
clinch. 

The magnetic tension, incidental to 
snow-storms, aided the parting of the 
cordage. It broke, as much from 
the efffects of this, as from the wind. 
Chains were jerked out of their pulleys 
and of no more use. The bows forward, 
and the quarters aft, bent under the 
enormous pressure. One wave carried 
away the compass, with the binnacle. 
Another carried away the boat, slung 
like a portmanteau under the bow- 
sprit, af^er the strange xYstiirian fash- 
ion. Another carried away the sprit- 
sail yard. Another carried away the 
image of Our Lady at the prow, to- 
gether with the flre-cage. 

There remained the rudder only. The 
place of the extinguished signal-light 
was supplied by a torch made of flam- 
ing tow and lighted tar, which was 
hung from the rudder-post. 

The mast, snapped in two, all bris- 
tling with quivering tatters, with cord- 
age, with tackling-blocks, and with 
yards, encumbered the deck. In fall- 
ing, it had smashed a portion of the 
starboard bulwark. 

The master, still at the tiller, shouted 
out : — As long as we*can steer, nothing 
is lost. The lower planking holds 
good. Axes! axes! Overboard with 
the mast ! Clear the deck ! 

Crew and passengers were fevered 
by this supreme struggle. It was but 
an affair of some blows with tjie axe. 


58 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


They hove the mast over the side. 
The deck was cleared. 

— INow, said the .master, take a hal- 
yard and lash me to the tiller. 

They hound him to the helm. 

While they were fastening him, he 
laughed. He called out to the sea : 

— Bellow away, old woman, bellow 
away ! IVe seen worse off Cape Ma- 
chichaco. 

And, when he was securely tied, he 
grasped the tiller with both hands, 
with that delirious joy that peril en- 
genders. 

— All goes well, comrades ! Hurrah 
for Our Lady of Buglose ! Let us steer 
for the west ! 

A colossal cross-wave came, and 
flung itself down upon the after-body. 
There is always in tempests a sort of 
tiger- wave, ferocious, and bringing all 
to an end, that reaches a certain point, 
crawls sometimes as though on .its 
belly along the sea, then bounds, roars, 
gnashes its teeth, pounces on the ship 
in distress and tears it to pieces. An 
engulfment of foam covered all the 
poop of the Matutina; and in the 
midst of the water and the darkness 
was heard a rending asunder. When 
the foam was dissipated, when the 
stern reappeared, there was no more 
master, nor rudder. 

All had been swept away. 

The tiller and the man, that they 
had just bound together, had gone 
with the wave into the howling pell- 
mell of the tempest. 

The chief of the band looked fixedly 
into the gloom, and exclaimed : 

— Te lurlas de nosotros f * 

To this cry of revolt succeeded an- 
other cry : 

— Let us let go the anchor ! Let us 
save the master ! 

They ran to the capstan. They let 
the anchor go. Orks have but one. 


^ “Are you making game of us ? ” 


This led only to the losing it. The 
bottom was living rocks, the swell 
maddening. The cable snapped like a 
hair. 

The anchor rested at the bottom of 
the sea. 

Of the cutwater, there remained 
only the angel figure-head looking 
through his spy-glass. 

From this moment, the ork was no 
more than a waif. The Matutina was 
irredeemably crippled. The vessel, but 
a while ago, winged and almost ter- 
rible in her course, was now impotent. 
Hot a bit of rigging that was not mu- 
tilated and out of gear. Unresisting 
and passive, she obeyed the weird 
furies of the waters. It is on the ocean 
alone that one sees, in some few min- 
utes, an eagle transformed into a being 
paralyzed and helpless. 

The breathing of space became more 
and more monstrous. The tempest is 
horrible in the way of lungs. It un- 
ceasingly aggravates the blackness that 
has no light and shade. The mid-sea 
bell rang furiously, as though shaken 
by a furious hand. 

The Matutina drifted on at the mercy 
of the waves ; a cork has similar undu- 
lations. She no longer sailed; she 
merely floated. She seemed ready, 
every instant, like a dead fish, to turn 
up her belly to the surface. That 
which saved her from total loss was 
the good condition of the hull, that 
was perfectly water-tight. Hot a plank 
beneath the water-line had given way. 
There was neither crack nor crevice, 
nor a drop of water in the hold. For- 
tunately so, for the pump was dam- 
aged, and could not be of any use. 

The ork danced hideously in the an- 
guish of the waves. The deck had 
convulsions, as the diaf)hragm when it 
strains to vomit. One might have said 
that it strained to eject the doomed 
men. They, in^-t, clung to the stand- 
ing-rigging, to the bulwarks, to the 


THE CASKETS. 


59 


Carlings, to tlie davits, to tlie gaskets, 
to broken places in tlie started plank- 
ing, to tlie useless riders, the nails of 
which tore their hands, to all the mis- 
erable shreds of ruin. From time to 
time they listened. The sound of the 
bell grew more feeble. It might have 
been said that it, too, was in extremis. 
Its tolling was no more than an inter- 
mittent rattle. Then the rattle itself 
died away. Where were they, then, 
and how far from the buoy? The 
noise of the bell had scared them. Its 
silence terrified them. The nor’wester 
made them take a course perhaps irrep- 
arable. They felt themselves carried 
away by a frantic blast of breath. The 
wreck swept on rapidly in the blackness. 
Than a blind swiftness, nothing is more 
frightful. They felt the precipice be- 
fore them, under them, above them. 
It was no more a course ; it was a fall. 

Abruptly, amidst the tumult of the 
thickened snow, a red spot appeared. 

— A light-house ! cried the unhappy 
men. 

XI. 

THE CASKETS. 

It was in fact the light-house on the 
Caskets. A light-house in the seven- 
teenth century was a high cylindrical 
and bell-shaped work of masonry, sur- 
mounted by a lighting apparatus alto- 
gether scientific. That on the Caskets, 
at this day, is a triple white tower, and 
bearing three tiers of lights. These 
three fire-houses revolve and pivot on 
clock-work wheels with such precision, 
that the man on watch, who observes 
them from the offing, invariably takes 
ten steps in his walk on deck during the 
irradiation, and twenty-five during the 
eclipse. All is calculated in the focal 
plane, and in the rotation of the octag- 
onal drum formed of eight broad simple 
lenses one over the other, and having. 


above and below, its two series of dioptric 
rings — algebraic gear guarded against 
gusts of wind or shocks of the sea by 
glass windows one millimetre in thick- 
ness, yet sometimes broken neverthe- 
less by sea-eagles that throw themselves 
against it, great moths of these giant 
lanterns. The masonry that encloses, 
upholds, and serves as a setting for this 
mechanism is, like it, mathematical. 
All is sober, exact, unadorned, precise, 
correct. A light-house is a numeral 
figure. 

In the seventeenth century, a light- 
house was a highly ornamental object 
on land beside the sea. The architec- 
ture of the tower was magnificent and 
extravagant. Fpon it were lavished 
balconies, balustrades, little turrets, 
small lodges, alcoves, weathercocks. 
There was nothing but masks, statues, 
foliage, volutes, round bosses, figures and 
little figures, modillions, with inscrip- 
tions. Pax in Bello., said the Eddy- 
stone light-house. Let us look at it in 
passing. / This declaration of peace did 
not always disarm the ocean. "Win- 
stanley repeated it on a light-house that 
he erected, at his own expense, on a 
wild spot before Plymouth. The build- 
ing completed, he placed himself in it, 
for the purpose of trying it against a 
storm. The storm came, and carried 
off the light-house and Winstanley. 
For the rest, these exaggerated build- 
ings offered on all sides a hold for the 
wind-gusts, as generals too much bediz- 
ened are apt to attract the bullets in 
battle. Besides their fantasies in stone, 
there were fantasies in copper, in wood; 
the iron- work made relief, the carpen- 
ter’s work made projections. Every- 
where, on the outside of the building, 
fastened to the wall among the ara- 
besques, implements of all kinds figured 
abundantly, the useful and the useless, 
winches, tackling, pulleys, balance- 
weights, ladders, cranes for loading, 
grappling-irons in case of accident. On 


60 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


the top, around the lighting-chamber, 
delicately wrought iron-work supported 
large chandeliers of iron, in which were 
junks of cable steeped in rosin, wicks 
that burned tenaciously, and that no 
wind could extinguish. And from top 
to bottom the tower was covered with 
maritime standards, with streamers, with 
banners, with flags, with pennons that 
mounted from staff to staff, from stage 
to stage, amalgamating all the colors, 
all the forms, all the blazons, all the 
signals, all these varieties, up to the 
radiated cage, and made in the storm a 
joyous flutter around the flaming cen- 
tre. This effrontery of light on the very 
verge of destruction was as it were a de- 
fiance, and inspired shipwrecked mari- 
ners with audacity. But the Caskets 
Light-house was not of this fashion. 

It was then a simple, old, and rude af- 
fair, such as Henry I. had caused to be 
constructed after the loss of the Blanche 
Nef—o. burning pile under a treUis- 
work of iron on the crown of a rock. 
Live coal behind a grating, and a long- 
haired flame in the wind. 

The only improvement made in this 
light-house since the twelfth century 
was a forge-bellows moved by a chain 
and hook with stone weights, which had 
been adjusted to the fire-cage in 1610. 

The flight of sea-birds against these 
antique light-houses was more tragical 
than with those of our day. The birds 
flocked thither, attracted by the bril- 
liance, threw themselves upon it, and 
fell into the brasier, where one might 
see them flutter, as it were, black spirits 
agonizing within their hell. Some- 
times, too, they fell upon the rock out- 
side of the reddened cage, smoking, 
limping, blinded, like flies half-burned 
by the flame of a lamp. 

To a vessel under sail, well found, 
provided with all the appliances of gear, 
and manageable by the pilot, the Cas- 
kets’ light is useful. It cries, “ Take 
care ! ” it warns him of the rock. To 


a disabled ship it is simply terrible. 
The hull, paralyzed and inert, without 
means of resisting the insensate action 
of the water, without defence against 
the pressure of the wind, a fish without 
fins, a bird without wings, can but go 
whither the blasts may hurry her. The 
light-house indicates to her the supreme 
locality, signalizes the place for annihi- 
lation, throws a gleam upon the spot for 
swallowing up. It is the candle over 
the tomb. 

There is no more tragic irony than this 
lighting-up the inexorable yawning,, this 
warning against the inevitable. 

XII. 

HAND TO HAND WITH THE EOOKS. 

The poor wretches in distress on 
board the Matutina took in at once this 
mysterious derision, the supplement of 
shipwreck. The appearance of the 
light-house cheered them at first, then 
overwhelmed them. There was prayer 
to be uttered ; nothing to be done. 
What has been said of kings may be said 
of the waves. We are their people ; we 
are their prey. All that they rave, we 
undergo. The nor’wester drove the ork 
with the currents upon the Caskets. 
Thither went they ; there was no refusal. 
They drifted rapidly upon the reef. 
They felt the bottom rising up toward 
them. The lead, if lead could have 
been used, would not have given them 
more than three or four fathoms. The 
poor men listened to the rumbling en- 
gulfment of the waves within the hol- 
lows of the deep rock below the surface. 
They could make out above the light- 
house, like a dark strip between two 
bands of granite, the narrow strait of 
the hideous, small, and savage haven, 
that they surmised as full of men’s skel- 
etons, and the carcasses of ships. It 
was a cavern’s mouth, rather than the 
entrance of a port. They heard the 


HAND TO HAND WITH THE ROCKS. 


crackling of tlie fire liigli above them in 
its iron cage ; a haggard purple hue il- 
luminated the storm ; the meeting of the 
fiame and the hail troubled the mist; 
the black cloud and the red smoke com- 
bated, serpent against serpent ; a whirl 
of embers flew upon the blast ; the snow- 
flakes seemed to take to flight, before 
the rude attack of sparks. The break- 
ers, indistinct at first, now outlined 
themselves clearly, a jumble of rock, 
with peaks and crests and vertebra}. 
Its angles modelled themselves in liv- 
ing lines of vermilion, and the declivi- 
ties in bloody patches of light. As they 
came on, the contour of the rock grew 
larger, and rose higher in sinister relief. 

One of the women, the Irish one, 
told off her beads distractedly. 

In lack of the master, who was the 
pilot, there remained the chief, who was 
now captain. The Basques are all famil- 
iar with mountain and with sea. They 
are bold climbers, and inventive on oc- 
casions of catastrophe. 

They came ; they almost touched.' 
All at once they were so close to the 
great north cliff of the Caskets, that 
suddenly it shut out the light-house. 
They could see it only, and the glare 
behind it. This rock, upright in the 
haze, resembled a tall woman in black 
with head-dress of fire. 

This crag of evil omen is named the 
Biblet. It stands on the north, over 
against the rock, corresponding with an- 
other on the south, the Etacq-aux- 
Guilmets. 

The chief looked at the Biblet, and 
cried out: 

— A willing hand here to carry a line 
to the breakers ! Is there any one here 
that can swim ? 

There was no answer. 

Not a soul on board knew how to swim, 
not even the sailors ; a peculiarity, by the 
way, common enough among seafarers. 

A carling, almost detached from its fel- 
lows, oscillated in the planking. The 


61 

chief grappled it with both hands, and 
said : 

— Help me here ! 

They detached the carling. It was 
at his disposition, to do what he would 
with it. From being defensive, it be- 
came offensive. • 

It was a beam sufficiently long, in 
solid oak. Sound and strong, fit for 
serving as an engine of attack, or a 
means of support, a lever against a 
heavy weight, a battering-ram against a 
tower. 

— Stand by, cried the chief. 

They ranged themselves, six in num- 
ber, buttressed against the stump of the 
mast, holding the carling horizontally 
overboard, and straight as a lance tow- 
ard the projecting part of the rock. 

The manoeuvre was perilous. The 
idea of pushing against a mountain is 
audacity. The six men might be 
thrown into the water by the rebound. 

These are the diversities of the strug- 
gle with a tempest. After the squall, 
the reef; after the wind, the granite. 
One has to deal, now with the unseiz- 
able, now with the immovable. 

It was one of those minutes in which 
the hair turns white. The rock and the 
vessel were about to fall foul of each 
other. 

A rock is passive. It awaited. 

A wave broke in, disorderly. It put 
an end to the waiting. It took, the ork 
underneath, lifted it up and balanced it 
for a moment, as the sling balances the 
projectile. 

— Holdfast! shouted the chief. It 
is only a rock ; we are men. 

The beam was at poise. The six 
men were a part of it. The jagged 
pegs of the carling lacerated their arm- 
pits ; but they did not feel it. 

The wave threw the ork upon the rock. 

The shock took place. 

It took place under the shapeless 
cloud of foam, that always covers up 
these catastrophes. 


62 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


■When the cloud fell hack into the 
sea, when between wave and rock the 
normal condition was restored, the six 
men were rolling on the deck, but the 
Matutina was flying along the length 
of the breaker. The beam had held 
firm, and forced a deviation. In a 
few seconds, the hurrying-on of the 
surges being maddened, the Caskets 
were astern of the ork. The Matutina 
was, for the moment, out of immediate 
danger. 

This does happen. It was the direct 
crash of his bowsprit against the cliff 
that saved Wood, of Largo, at the 
mouth of the Tay. In the rude lati- 
tudes of Cape Winterton, and under 
the command of Captain Hamilton, it 
was by manoeuvring a similar lever 
against the redoubtable Brannodu-um 
rock that the Royal Mary escaped 
wreck, though she was but a frigate 
after Scottish model. The wave is a 
force so suddenly decomposed, that to 
divert it is easy, or at least possible, even 
in concussions the most violent. There 
is something of the brute in the tem- 
pest. The hurricane is the bull, and 
he can be put off his cue. 

Endeavoring to pass from the secant 
to the tangent — all the secret of escap- 
ing shipwreck lies therein. 

This was the service that the carling 
had rendered to the ork. It had done 
the duty of an oar; it had held the 
place of a rudder. But this liberating 
manoeuvre once performed, it could not 
be recommenced. The beam was gone. 
The violence of the collision had made 
it leap overboard from the grasp of the 
men, and it was lost in the waters. To 
unloosen another plank was to dislo- 
cate all the ribs. 

The hurricane carried off the Matu- 
tina. All at once the Caskets appeared 
as a useless encumberment on the hori- 
zon. Nothing has more the air of be- 
ing put out of countenance, than a rock 
on the like occasion. There is in Nature, 


on the side of the unknown, there 
where the visible and the invisible are 
complicated, a fixed and soured aspect, 
as though indignant at a prey let go. 

So looked the Caskets, while the Ma- 
tutina fled away. 

The light retreated, grew pale, grew 
white, and then went out. 

This extinction was rueful. The 
thicknesses of the mist overlaid the 
flaming, now diffused. The rays of 
light were dilated in the immensity of 
moisture. The flame floated, strug- 
gled, buried itself, lost form. You 
might say that it was drowned. The 
brasier became a candle-end ; it was no 
more than a trembling, vague and wan. 
All around, a circle of extravasated light 
grew larger. It was as though light 
were crushed out in the clutches of 
night. 

The bell, which had been a threat, 
was silent; the light-house, which had 
been a threat, had vanished. Never- 
theless, when these two menaces had 
disappeared, it was even more terrible. 
The one was a voice, the other a torch. 
They had something human in them. 
In their absence, remained the abyss. 

XIII. 

FACE TO FACE WITH THE HIGHT. 

The ork found itself in measureless 
obscurity. 

The Matutina^ escaped from the Cas- 
kets, went down from billow into bil- 
low. Eespited, but engulfed. Driven 
crosswise by the wind, acted on by the 
thousand tractions of the water, she 
peUed all the maddened oscillation < t 
the waves. She scarcely pitched aii} 
longer, fatal sign of a vessel’s dis ’-of s 
Waifs can only roll. Pitching ' . t .:; , 
convulsion of the conflict. Thf neJj) 
can only act when the vessel pi'o- 
pelled. 

In a tempest, and especially a fue- 


OETACH. 


63 


teoric snow-storm, the sea and night 
conclude by merging and amalgamating, 
and by becoming one and the same ex- 
halation. Mist, whirlwind, blast, glid- 
ing in every sense, no point of support, 
no place of mark, no breathing-speU, a 
perpetual recommencement, one open- 
ing after another, no horizon visible, 
profound recoiling — in all this the ork 
was wafted on. 

Getting clear of the Caskets, eluding 
the rocks, this had been a victory for 
the poor mariners. But, above all, a 
stupefaction. They had given vent to 
no hurrahs ; at sea, imprudences of this 
sort do not happen twice. To throw a 
provocation, where one could not throw 
a lead-line — this is serious. 

To have repelled the rock was to have 
accomplished the impossible. They 
were astounded at it. By degrees, how- 
ever, they began to hope. Such are 
the irrepressible loomings-up of the soul. 
Mo trial is there which, even at the 
most critical instant, does not see its 
gloom illuminated by the wonderful up- 
rising of hope. These poor wretches 
asked no more than inwardly to avow 
that they were saved. They stammered 
it to themselves. 

But a formidable object grew vast 
before them, all at once, in the night. 
To larboard, uprose, defined, and cut it- 
self out of the background of mist, a lof- 
ty mass, opaque, vertical, right-angled, 
a- tower standing square in the abyss. 

They looked at it, open-mouthed. 

The blast impelled them toward it. 

They knew not what it was. It was 
the rock Ortach. 

XIV. 

OETACH. 

The reef recommenced. After the 
Caskets, Ortach. The tempest is no 
artist; it is brutal and all-powerful, 
and does not vary its means. 

5 


Darkness is not to bo exhausted. It 
is never at the end of its snares and its 
perfidies. Man, himself, quickly reach- 
es the extremity of his resources. 
Man expends himself; the abyss does 
not. 

The wretched men turned toward 
their chief, their hope. He could only 
shrug his shoulders, the sullen disdain 
of impotence. 

The rock Ortach is a graved spot in 
the midst of the ocean. All of one 
piece, lifted above the opposing shock 
of the surges, it rises vertically eighty 
feet. Ships and the waves shiver them- 
selves upon it. An immutable cape, it 
plunges perpendicularly its rectilinear 
sides into the countless and waving 
curves of the sea. 

At night, it figures as an enormous 
headsman’s block, posed upon the folds 
of vast black drapery. In a storm, it 
awaits the stroke of the axe, that is to 
say, of the thunder-clap. 

But never is there clap of thunder in 
the whikwind of snow. The ship, it is 
true, has a bandage over its eyes ; all 
possible darkness is bound fast upon 
it. It is ready as though for the execu- 
tioner. As for the thunderbolt, which 
were a prompt ending — there is no room 
to hope for it. 

The Matutina^ being no more than a 
stranded object afloat, moved on toward 
this rock as she had moved on toward 
the other. The unfortunate ones, who 
for a moment believed themselves saved, 
reentered into anguish. The wrecking, 
which they had left behind them, re- 
appeared before them. The rock rose 
up again from the bottom of the sea. 
Nothing was done. 

The Caskets are honeycombed into 
a thousand compartments ; the Ortach 
is a wall. To be wrecked upon the 
Caskets is to be cut in pieces; to be 
wrecked on the Ortach is to be ground 
small. 

There was, however, one chance. 


64 


SEA AKD NIGHT. 


Upon these bold fronts — and the 
Ortach is a hold front — the wave has 
no more ricochet than a bullet would 
have. It is reduced to a simple game. 
It comes in a breaker, and returns a 
ground-swell. 

In such cases, the question of life and 
death resolves itself into this : if the 
billow casts the vessel on the rock, she 
is broken up, she is lost ; if the surf re- 
treats before the vessel touches, it 
brings her back, she is saved. 

Poignant anxiety. The victims saw 
in the haze the vast supreme wave ap- 
proaching them. "When would it near 
them? If it broke upon the vessel, 
they would be impelled upon the rock, 
and shattered to pieces. If it passed 
underneath the vessel. . . . 

The wave did pass underneath the 
vessel. 

They breathed. 

But what of its return ? What would 
the swell make of them ? 

The swell bore them away. 

Some minutes later, the Matutina 
was clear of the waters about the rock. 
The Ortach grew indistinct, as the 
Caskets had grown indistinct. 

It was the second victory. For the 
second time, the ork had been on the 
very verge of wreck, and had recoiled 
in season. 

xy. 

GIGAITTIO CAPEICES. 

Meanwhile a thickening of the mist 
had come down upon these hopeless 
ones adrift. They knew not where 
they were. They could scarcely see a 
few cables’ length around the ork. 
Despite a veritable stoning by the hail 
which forced them all to hold down 
their heads, the women were deter- 
mined not to go down again into the 
cabin. Never a wretch in despair, who 
did not prefer to be wrecked under the 
open sky. So near to death, a ceiling 


above one seems to be a foretaste of the 
coffin. 

The swell became more and more 
short. This short swell indicates com- 
pression ; in foggy weather certain rip- 
plings are signs of a strait. In fact, un- 
known to themselves, they were coast- 
ing along Aurigny. Between Ortach 
and the Caskets on the west, and Au- 
rigny on the east, the sea is bound in 
and cramped, and a fretted state for the 
sea determines locally the conditions of 
the storm. The sea suffers, like any 
thing else ; and then, where it suffers, 
it becomes irritated. This pass is held 
in terror. 

The Matutina was in this pass. 

Let any one imagine, below the water, 
a turtle-shell as large as Hyde Park or 
the Champs Elys^es, of which each 
longitudinal mark is a hollow, and each 
embossment a reef. Such is the west- 
ern approach of Aurigny. The sea 
covers over and hides this contrivance 
for shipwreck. Over this callapash of 
submarine breakers, the wave, broken 
into shivers, leaps and foams. In calm, 
a ripple ; in storm, chaos. 

The poor fellows noticed this new 
complication, without explaining it to 
themselves. Suddenly, they compre- 
hended it. There was a partial light- 
ing up at the zenith, and a slight pallor 
spread itself over the water ; this livid- 
ness unmasked on the larboard hand a 
long bar running crosswise to the east ; 
and toward this a furious gust of wind 
was driving, as it chased the vessel be- 
fore it. This bar was Aurigny. 

What was this bar ? They trembled. 
They would have trembled far more, if 
a voice had answered them — Aurigny ! 

No island defended against the com- 
ing of man, like Aurigny. It has, above 
water and under water, a ferocious 
guard, whereof Aurigny is the sentinel. 
Toward the west, Barhou, Sauteriaux, 
Aufroque, Niangle, Fond-du-Croc, les 
Jumelles, la Grosso, la Clanque, les 


GIGANTIC CAPEICEa 


Equillons, le Vrac, la Fosse-Mali^re ; 
toward the east, Sauquet, Hommeaii 
Floreau, la Brinebetais, la Queslinque, 
Croqiielibore, la Fonscbe, le Saut, Noire 
Pate, Coapie, Orbue. Wbat are all 
these monsters ? Hydras ? Yes ; of 
the rock species. 

One of these reefs is called le But, as 
if to indicate that every voyage ends 
there. 

This encumherment of rocks, simpli- 
fied by the water and the night, ap- 
peared to the hapless men under the 
plain form of an obscure line, a black 
streak on the horizon. 

Shipwreck is the ideal of impotence. 
To he near the land, and unable to 
reach it ; to float, and to he unable to 
sail on; to have a foot on something 
that appears solid, and is fragile ; to he 
full of life and full of death at the same 
instant; to he a prisoner in extended 
space ; to he walled in between sea 
and sky; to have the infinite above 
one as a dungeon ; to have around one 
the immense hreakings-loose of gusts 
and of waves; and to he seized, gar- 
roted, paralyzed — this weight of bur- 
den stupefies and makes indignant. You 
fancy that you recognize the sneers of 
some inaccessible combatant. That, 
which holds you fast, is the very same 
that lets go the birds, and gives the fish 
their liberty. This seems nothing, and it 
is every thing. You are dependent on this 
air, that you can disturb by a breath ; 
dependent on this water, that you can 
hold in the hollow of your hand. Draw 
from this tempest a glassful — ^it is but 
a small embittered draught. A mouth- 
ful — ^it is nausea ; the billow — ^it is ex- 
termination. The grain of sand in the 
desert, the flake of foam in the ocean, 
are giddy manifestations. The all-power 
takes not the trouble to conceal its 
atoms; it makes feebleness force; it 
fills the nothingness with its all; and 
it is with the infinitely little that the 
infinitely great overwhelms you. It is 


G5 

with its drops that the ocean crunches 
you. You feel yourself a plaything. 

A plaything ; how terrible the term ! 

The Matutina was a little above Au- 
rigny, which was in her favor ; but she 
drifted toward the northern point, which 
was fatal. The wind, northwest, j ust as 
a bent bow lets fly an arrow, launched 
the craft toward the northern cape. 
There exists at this point, a little on 
this side of Havre de Corbelets, what 
the seamen of the Norman archipelago 
call a “ singe.” 

The “singe” — swinge — is a current 
of the furious order. A chaplet of fun- 
nels in the shoals produces in the waves 
a chaplet of whirlpools. When one lets 
you go, another takes hold of you. A 
vessel, snapped up by 'the “singe,” 
twirls about, therefore, in one spiral 
affc'er another, until some sharp-pointed 
rock pierces her hull. Then, burst asun- 
der, she stops ; the stern rears itself out 
of the water ; the bow plunges ; the 
whirlpool completes itte turn of the 
wheel i! the stern drives downward, and 
all is closed again. A puddle of foam 
enlarges itself and floats, and one only 
sees upon the surface a few bubbles 
here and there, caused by stifled res- 
pirations beneath the water. 

In the whole Channel, the three most 
dangerous “singes” are,. the one that 
is near the famous sand-bank. Girdled 
Sands, the one that is at Jersey, be- 
tween le Pignonnet and the point of 
Noirmont, and the “ singe ” of Aurigny. 

A local pilot, had there been one on 
board the Matutina, would have made 
her crew aware of this new peril. In 
place of a jjilot, they had instinct ; in 
extreme situations there is a second- 
sight. Wreaths of foam were flying 
high along the coast, under the mad- 
dened pillaging of the wind. This was 
the spitting of the “ singe.” In this 
ambush many a ship has capsized. 
Without knowing what was there, they 
drew near with horror. 


66 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


How double this cape ! There was no 
expedient. 

Just as they had seen the 'Caskets 
rise up, then Ortach rise up, at pres- 
ent they saw the point of Aurigny, all 
of high rock, stand before them. These 
were as giants, one following the other. 
A series of fearful duels. 

Oharybdis and Scylla are only two ; 
the Caskets, Ortach, and Aurigny, are 
three. 

The same phenomenon of the hori- 
zon invaded by rock reproduced itself 
with grandiose monotony. The battles 
of the ocean, like the battles of Homer, 
have their sublime repetition. 

Each billow, as they drew near, added 
twenty cubits to the headland, fright- 
fully amplified in the mist. The de- 
crease of interval appeared more and 
more without remedy. They touched 
the skirts of the “singe.” The first 
fold that seized them would drag them 
down. One more wave, and all would 
be ended. 

All at once the ork was thrust astern, 
as though by a blow from a Titan’s fist. 
The billow reared up beneath the vessel 
and turned upon itself, throwing back 
the waif in its crest of spume. The 
Matutina^ under this impulsion, got 
clear of Aurigny. 

The sport of agony, she found herself 
once more in the offing. 

Whence came this help ? From the 
• wind. 

The breath of the storm had changed 
its direction. 

The water had been playing with 
them. Now it was the turn of the 
wind. They had disengaged them- 
selves from the Caskets : before Ortach, 
the action of the sea had brought about 
a revolution; before Aurigny, it was 
the north-wind. There had been a 
sudden shift from north to south. 

The sou’wester had succeeded the 
nor’wester. 

A current is the wind in the water ; 


the wind is the current in the air. 
These two forces had come into con- 
tact, and the wind had the caprice to 
withdraw its prey from the current. 

The abrupt movements of the ocean 
are inexplicable. They form a perpet- 
ual perhaps. When at their mercy, one 
can neither hope, nor despair. They 
make; they unmake. The ocean 
amuses itself. All shades of animal 
ferocity are in this vast and cunning 
sea, which Jean Bart called “ the gross 
beast.” It is the clutch of a sharp 
claw, with intervals, at will, of velvet 
handling. Sometimes the storm fin- 
ishes a shipwreck off-hand. Some- 
times it gets one up with care — it 
might almost be said, with caresses. 
The sea has its own time. Those, who 
are at the point of death, perceive this. 

Sometimes, let it be said, these de- 
lays in execution announce deliverance. 
Such instances are rare. Be that as it 
may, dying men are prompt to believe 
in safety; the smallest abatement in 
the threats of the tempest is sufficient 
for them; they affirm to themselves 
that they are out of danger; after 
deeming themselves buried, they are 
ready to avail themselves of a resurrec- 
tion ; they accept feverishly that they 
are not yet in actual possession ; it is 
evident that all their evil chances are 
exhausted ; they declare themselves 
satisfied; they are saved; they hold 
God quits. But it is well not to be in 
too great haste to give these receipts to 
the Unknown. 

The sou’wester made its debut in a 
whirlwind. Seamen in distress have 
none but crabbed auxiliaries. The Matu- 
tina was impetuously dragged away by 
what remained of her rigging, as a dead 
woman by her hair. This was like the 
deliverances accorded by Tiberius, at 
the cost of violation. The wind brutal- 
ized those whom it saved. It did them 
service, in a fury. Its help was with- 
out pity. 


THE ENIGMA SUDDENLY EELAXES. 


67 


The wreck, in this liberating rough- 
ness, completed its utter dislocation. 

Hailstones, of large size and hard 
enough for loading a swivel, crippled 
the vessel. At each surge of the 
waves, these hailstones rolled along 
the deck like balls. The ork, as it 
were between two waters, lost all form 
under the batterings of the waves and 
the foaming of tlie spray. Every one 
on board looked out for himself. 

He who could, clung to something. 
After each swash of the sea, they won- 
dered to find their number still com- 
plete. Several had their faces torn by 
splinters from the wood-work. 

Happily, despair has stout fists. A 
child’s hand, in terror, has the grip of 
a giant. Agony constructs a vice out 
of woman’s fingers. A young girl, 
under the influence of fear, would dint 
her rosy nails into iron. They caught 
at every thing, they held on, they got 
hold again. But each billow brought 
with it the agony of keeping their 
balance. 

All at once, they were relieved. 

XYI. 

THE ENIGMA SUDDENLY EELAXES. 

The tempest had stopped short. ^ 

In the air, there was no more either 
of sou’wester or nor’wester. The in- 
furiate clarions of space were silenced. 
The whirlwind passed away out of the 
atmosphere, without previous diminu- 
tion and without transition, as though 
it had slid down perpendicularly into 
an abyss. They knew no longer where 
it was. Flakes had replaced the hail- 
stones. The snow began again to fall 
leisurely. 

Ho more swell. The sea flattened 
itself. 

These sudden cessations are common 
in hurricanes of snow. The electric 
effluvium being spent, all becomes tran- 


quil ; even the wave, that in ordinary 
storms keeps up, above all, a protracted 
agitation. Not so here. No prolong- 
ing of anger in the waters. Like a 
laborer after fatiguing work, the sea 
moderated all at once, which is almost 
a contradiction of statistical laws, but 
which never astonishes veteran pilots, 
for they know that the ocean is subject 
to all manner of surprises. 

At the expiration of some minutes, it 
was calm all around the ork. 

At the same time, for the last phase 
resembles the first, one can no longer 
distinguish any thing. All, that had 
become visible during the convulsion of 
meteoric clouds, again became ob- 
scure ; the wan outlines melted away 
and were difiused; the gloom of the 
infinite gathered from aU sides about 
the vessel. This wall of night, this 
impenetrable circle, this inner side of 
a cylinder whose diameter grew less 
from minute to mmute, enveloped the 
Matutina^ and, with the sinister slow- 
ness an iceberg that is forming, 
formidably contracted itself. At the 
zenith, nothing — a lid of mist — an en- 
closure. The ork was as though at the 
very bottom of an abyss. 

In this pit, a puddle of liquid lead ; 
that was the sea. The water stirred 
no more. A gloomy immovableness. 
The ocean is never more fierce, than 
when a pool. 

All was silence, stillness, blindness. 

The silence of things partakes, per- 
haps, of the nature of taciturnity. 

The last ripples glided along the 
sides. The deck was horizontal, with 
imperceptible declinations. Some dis- 
jointures stirred feebly. The grenade- 
shell that took the place of the signal- 
lantern, and in which the tow steeped 
in pitch was burning, trembled no 
longer on the bowsprit, and threw no 
more its flaming drops into the sea. 
What there was of breath remaining in 
its shower of sparks made no noise. 


68 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


The snow fell, thick, soft, and scarcely 
oblique. They heard the foaming of 
no more breakers. The peace of gloom. 

This repose, after these exasperations 
and these paroxysms, was, for the hap- 
less ones so long tossed about, an un- 
speakable well-being. It seemed to 
them that they ceased to be put upon 
the rack. They saw around them and 
above them a willingness that they 
should be saved. They regained con- 
fidence. All that had been fury was 
now tranquillity. This appeared to 
them the signing of peace. Their miser- 
able chests dilated. They could let go 
the end of the rope or the plank they 
had been grasping, could rise up, 
straighten themselves, keep themselves 
standing upright, walk, move about. 
They felt themselves inexpressibly 
calmed. In the hidden depths of these 
heavenly changes, there was prepara- 
tion for something else. It was clear 
that they were, beyond peradventure, 
out of the squalls, out of the foam, out 
of the blasts, out of the raging, set free. 

Henceforward, all chances were in 
their favor. In three or four hours it 
would be daylight, they would be seen 
by some passing ship, they would be 
picked up. The worst was over. They 
were coming back into life. The im- 
portant fact was, their having been able 
to keep afloat until the close of the 
storm. They said to themselves : “This 
time it is over ! ” 

All at once they perceived that all, 
in fact, was over. One of the sailors, 
a northern Basque, named Galdeazun, 
went down into the hold, to look for 
some cordage ; then -came up, and said: 

— The hold is full. 

— Of what ? asked the leader. 

— Of water, replied the seaman. 

The chief cried out : 

— What’s the meaning of that? 

— The meaning is, answered Galdea- 
zun, that in half an hour we shall 
founder. 


XVII. 

THE LAST EESOUEOE. 

Theee was a rift in the keel. A 
leak was sprung. At what moment ? 
No one could say. Was it in coming 
alongside the Caskets? Was it before 
Ortach ? Was it in the plashings of the 
shallows west of Aurigny? The most 
probable solution was, that they had 
touched the “Singe.” They had re- 
ceived an unexplained stab. It was 
not heeded amid all the convulsive 
blows that had shaken them. In lock- 
jaw, one does not feel a prick. 

Another sailor, the southern Basque, 
who called himself Ave-Maria, went 
down in his turn into the hold, came 
up again, and said : “The water is two 
mres deep.” 

About six feet. 

Ave-Maria added : 

— In less than forty minutes, down 
we go. 

Where was the leak? It was not 
visible. It was drowned. The body 
of water, that filled the hold, hid the 
rift. The vessel had a hole in her 
belly, somewhere below the floating- 
line, indeed far below the careening line. 
Impossible to find it. Impossible to 
plug it. There was a wound, but they 
could not dress it. The water, how- 
ever, was not coming in very fast. 

The leader cried out : 

— We must pump. 

Galdeazun replied : 

— We have no more pumps. 

— Then, rejoined the chief, let us 
get to land ! 

— Land? Where? 

— I don’t know. 

— Nor I, 

— But it is somewhere. 

— Yes. . 

— Let some one take us there, con- 
tinued the leader. 

— We have no pilot, said Galdeazun. 

— Take the tiller, you. 


THE LAST EESOUECE. 


69 


— We have no more tiller. 

— Let’s rig one up with the first spar 
we can lay our hands on. Nails ! A 
hammer! Quick! Tools! 

— The carpenter’s chest is overboard. 
W e have no more tools. 

— Let’s steer, all the same ; no mat- 
ter where ! 

— We have no more rudder. 

— Where is the boat? Let’s jump 
into it ! Let’s row ! 

— We have no longer a boat. 

— Let’s row the hull ! 

— We have no more oars. 

— Up sail, then ! 

— We have no more sails, and no 
more mast. 

— Let’s make a mast out of a car- 
ling ! Let’s make a sail out of a tar- 
paulin. Let’s get out of this. Let’s 
trust ourselves to the wind. 

— There is no more wind. 

The wind, in fact, had left them. 
The storm had gone away; and this 
departure, which they had taken for 
their salvation, was their loss. The 
sou’wester, if still blowing, would 
have driven them madly upon some 
coast, would have gained upon the 
leak by swift movement, would have 
carried them perhaps to some good 
propitious sand-bank, and would have 
grounded them before they went down. 
The rapid hurrying away of a blast 
might have caused them to drive 
ashore. No wind, no hope ! They were 
dying from the absence of the hurricane! 

The supreme situation was before 
them. 

The wind, the hail, the squall, the 
whirlwind, are disorderly combatants 
whom one may overcome. The tem- 
pest may be taken, in lack of armor. 
There are resources against violence 
that unceasingly lays itself bare, makes 
false moves, and gives many a side 
blow. But there is nothing to be 
done against a calm. No relief that 
one can lay hold on. 


The winds are an attack by Cossacks ; 
hold your ground, and they disperse. 
A calm is the torturing pincers of the 
executioner. 

The water, not rapidly, but without 
interruption, irresistible and heavy, 
mounted in the hold ; and, in propor- 
tion as it mounted, the ork descended. 
This was very slowly. 

The crew of the Matutina felt open- 
ing beneath them, little by little, the 
most hopeless of catastrophes, the pas- 
sive. The still and ominous certainty 
of the unconscionable fact took hold of 
them. The air did not oscillate, the 
sea was not dreaming. The immov- 
able is the inexorable. The swallow- 
ing up held them in silence. Athwart 
the mass of speechless water, without 
anger, without passion, without wish- 
ing it, without knowing it, without in- 
terest therein, the fatal centre of the 
globe was attracting them. Horror, 
in quiescence, amalgamated them with 
itself. It was no more the yawning 
mouthy 3f the ocean, the double jaw of 
wind and sea wickedly menacing, the 
grinning of the whirlwind, the spum- 
ing appetite of the surge; it was one 
knows not what dark gaping of the 
Infinite beneath these miserable men. 
They found themselves entering into a 
peaceful profundity, that was death. 
The extent of hull, that their craft still 
showed above water, was diminishing 
— nothing more. They could calculate 
at what minute she would be etfaced. 
It was the very reverse of submersion 
by a rising tide. The water did not 
mount toward them ; they descended 
toward it. The digging of their tomb 
was their own act. Their own weight 
was the grave-digger. 

They were executed, not by the 
law of men, but by the law of 
things. 

The snow was falling, and, as the 
vessel moved not, this white lint was 
converted into a cloth upon the deck, 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


VO 

and covered the ork with a winding- 
sheet. 

The hold grew heavier and heavier. 
No means of overcoming the leak. 
They had not even a scoop for haling, 
which, besides, would have been an 
absurdity, and useless, the ork being 
decked. They lighted themselves up. 
They set fire to two or three torches, 
that they planted in holes, and as they 
might. Galdeazun brought some old 
leather buckets. They undertook to 
stanch the hold, and ranged themselves 
in file ; but the buckets were past ser- 
vice, the leather of some had been 
sewed and sewed again, the bottom of 
others was burst through, and the buck- 
ets emptied themselves on the way. 
The inequality was ludicrous, between 
what was received and what was ren- 
dered. A ton of water entered; a 
glassful was discharged. They had no 
more success than this. It was the 
miser’s disbursement, trying to spend a 
million, penny by penny. 

The leader said ; 

— Let’s lighten the wreck ! 

During the storm they had secured 
the several chests that were on deck. 
These had remained lashed to the stump 
of the mast. They undid the lashings, 
and rolled the chests overboard through 
one of the breaches in the bulwarks. 
One of these boxes belonged to the Bis- 
cayan woman, who could not refrain 
from groaning thus : 

— Oh, my new cape lined with scar- 
let! Oh, my poor open-work stock- 
ings, with birch-bark pattern I Oh, 
my silver ear-rings for going to mass in 
Mary’s month ! 

After clearing the deck, there re- 
mained the cabin. It was much en- 
cumbered. It contained, you may re- 
member, the passengers’ baggage, and 
also sundry bales belonging to the sailors. 

They took away the baggage, and 
got rid of all that load, by the breach in 
the bulwark. 


They drew up the bales, and pushed 
them overboard. 

They completed the emptying of the 
cabin. The lantern, the mast-head cap, 
barrels, sacks, buckets, the larder and the 
pot with the soup, all went overboard. 

They unscrewed the screws of the 
iron stove, the fire in which had been 
long extinguished; they unbedded it, 
they hoisted it on deck, they dragged it 
to the breach, and they precipitated it 
off from the vessel. 

They pitched into the water every 
thing that could be detached, of loose 
planking, of riders, of shrouds, and of 
rigging smashed up. 

From time to time, the leader took a 
torch, held it over the figures marking 
the draught that were painted on the 
stem, and noted how near they might 
be to foundering. 

XYIII. 

THE SUPEEME EESOXJECE. 

The floating wreck settled a little 
less, but settled continuously. 

Despair as to their situation found no 
more resource or palliative. The last 
expedient had been exhausted. 

— Is there still any thing else to be 
thrown overboard ? cried the leader. 

The doctor, whom no one thought of 
any more, came out from a corner of 
the companion-way, and said : 

—Yes. 

— What ? asked the chief. 

The doctor replied : 

— Our crimes. 

There was a shudder, and they all 
exclaimed : 

— Amen ! 

The doctor, standing up and turning 
pale, raised a finger to heaven, and 
said: 

— To your knees! 

They trembled, which is the first 
step toward kneeling : 

The doctor resumed ; 


THE SUPEEME EESOUECE. 


71 


— Let ns cast our crimes into the sea. 
They weigh us down. This is what is 
sinking the vessel. Let us think no 
more of being saved, but of salvation. 
Our last crime especially, the one which 
we have only just committed, or I 
should rather say completed — O 
wretched listeners, this it is that over- 
whelms us. It is impious insolence to 
tempt the abyss, when one leaves a 
murderous intention behind. What is 
done against a child is done against God. 
I know that embarking was a necessity, 
but it was none the less sure perdition. 
The storm, warned by the shadow that 
our action has cast, is come. It is well. 
For the rest, have no regret. Yonder 
we have, not far from us, in this obscu- 
rity, the sands of Yauville and Gape la 
Hougue. That is France. Spain was 
the only possible asylum. France is not 
less dangerous for us than England. 
Our rescue from the sea would have 
ended in the gibbet. To be hung, or 
drowned ; we had no other choice. 
God has chosen for us. Let us render 
Him thanks. He accords us the tomb 
that washes out. Brethren, the inevi- 
table was therein. Think that it was 
we who, a while ago, did all we could 
to transport thither on high that child, 
and that at this very moment, now while 
I am addressing you, there is perhaps a 
soul above our heads that accuses us, in 
presence of a judge who watches us. 
Let us profit by this latest respite. Let 
us force ourselves, if still it may be so, 
to repair, in so much as depends on us, 
the evil that we have done. If the 
child survives us, let us come to his aid. 
If he dies, let us strive that he may 
pardon us. Let us remove this heinous 
sin that overhangs us. Let us unload 
this burden from our consciences. Let 
us do our best, that our souls be not 
swallowed up before God, for -terrible 
is the shipwreck therein. The body 
goes to the fish, the soul to demons. 
Have pity on yourselves. To your 


knees, I tell you. Eepentance is the 
bark that does not founder. You have 
no longer a compass. I mistake. You 
have prayer. 

The wolves became sheep. These 
transformations occur at times of agony. 
It may happen that tigers lick , the 
crucifix. 'When the dark door stands 
ajar, belief is difiScult. Hon-belief is 
impossible. Howsoever imperfect may 
be the divers outlines of religion essayed 
by man — even though the belief be void 
of form, even though the contour of 
the dogma does not harmonize with the 
lineaments of eternity as imperfectly 
seen — there is, at the supreme moment, 
a quivering of the soul, the commence- 
ment of something after life. Such is 
the pressure of agony. 

The dying moment is the falling due 
of a bill. At this fatal instant, one feels 
the coming home of a difiTused responsi- 
bility. That which has been compli- 
cates that which will be. The past re- 
turns, and enters into the future. Tho 
known /becomes an abyss, no less than 
the unknown ; and these two precipices 
— one fraught with our faults, the other 
with our doom — ^mingle together their re- 
verberations. It is the confusion of these 
two chasms, that terrifies the dying man. 

They had made their last outlay of 
hope on this side of life. For that rea- 
son, they turned to the other side. Ho 
chance remained to them, but in this 
shadow. This they understood. It 
was an awful glimmering of light, fol- 
lowed all at once by a falling back into 
horror. What one comprehends at the 
last moment is like what one sees dur- 
ing a fiash of lightning. Every thing ; 
then, nothing. One sees ; and one sees 
no more. After death, the eye will re- 
open, and that which was a flash of 
lightning will become a sun. 

They shouted to the doctor. 

— You yourself! you yourself! There 
is no one but you. Wo will obey you. 
What must be done ? Speak ! 


72 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


The doctor answered : 

— We have to do with passing over 
the unknown precipice, and with reach- 
ing that other boundary of life which is 
beyond the tomb. Being the one 
among you best informed, I am the 
most in peril, of all. You do well to 
leave the choice of the bridge to him 
who carries the heaviest load. 

He added : 

— Science sets a price upon the 
conscience. 

Then he went on : 

— How much time is still left us? 

Galdeazun looked at the draught- 
mark, and answered : 

— Bather more than a quarter of an 
hour. 

— Good, said the doctor. 

The low roof of the companion, on 
which he was leaning, made a sort of 
table. The doctor took from his pocket 
his inkhorn and his pen, and his portfolio, 
whence he drew forth a piece of parch- 
ment, the one on the back of which ho 
had written, some hours before, a score 
of lines uneven and set close. 

— A light, said he. 

Tlie snow, falling like the foam from 
a cataract, had put out the torches one 
after the other. One alone remained. 
Ave-Maria took it up, and came and 
took his place, standing by the doctor’s 
side, and holding the torch. 

The doctor replaced the portfolio in 
his pocket, put his pen and his inkhorn 
upon the companion, unfolded the parch- 
ment, and said : 

— Listen. 

Then, in the midst of the ocean, on 
this hulk diminishing in size, as it were 
the shaking floor of a tomb, began a 
reading gravely made by the doctor, and 
whereto all the darkness seemed to 
listen. All these condemned men bowed 
their heads around him. The flaming of 
the torch accentuated their pallor. What 
the doctor read was written in English. 
At intervals, when some one of these 


doleful countenances appeared to desire 
an explanation, the doctor stopped, and 
repeated in French, in Biscayan, in 
Spanish, or in Italian, the passage that 
he had just read. Stifled sighs were 
heard, and dull beatings of the breast. 
The floating wreck continued to bury 
herself. 

The reading ended, the doctor laid 
the parchment flat upon the companion, 
took up his pen, and upon a blank mar- 
gin that he had left at foot of what he 
had written, signed his name : 

Doctoe Geeitaedus Geestemtjnde. 

Then, turning to the others, he said : 

'■ — Come, and sign. 

The Biscayan woman drew up, took 
the pen, and signed, Asunoioit. 

She passed the pen to the Irish wo- 
man, who, not knowing how to write, 
made a cross. 

The doctor, by the side of this cross, 
wrote : 

— Baebaea Feemoy, of Tyrryf Isl- 
and^ in the Hebrides. 

Then he handed over the pen to the 
leader of the band. 

The leader signed, Gaidotea, chief. 

The Genoese, below the chief, signed, 
Giangieate. 

The Languedocian signed, Jacques 
Quatoueze, called the Haebonnese. 

The Provencal signed, Luo. Pieeee 
CAPGAEOUPE,/r(9w the galleys at Mahon. 

Underneath these signatures, the doc- 
tor wrote this note : 

Of the three men of the crew, the 
master having been swept away by a 
sea, there are only two remaining, and 
they have signed. 

The two sailors affixed their names 
below this note. The Biscayan of the 
north signed, Galdeazun. The Biscayan 
of the south signed, Ave-Maeia, thief. 

Then the doctor said : 

— Oapgaroupe. 

— Here, said the Provencal. 

— You have got Hardquanonne’s 
gourd ? 


THE SUPEEME EESOUECE. 


— Yes. 

— Give it to me. 

Capgaroupe drained the last drop of 
the brandy, and handed the^ gourd to 
the doctor. 

The increase of the water in the hold 
became more marked. The wreck 
sunk deeper and deeper into the sea. 

The inclined edges of the deck were 
covered with small ripples that grew 
larger. 

All were grouped about the vessel’s 
sheer. 

The doctor dried the ink of the sig- 
natures by the torch, folded up the 
parchnient in folds narrower than the 
diameter of the bottle’s neck, and thrust 
it into the gourd. He cried out : 

— The cork. 

— I don’t know where it is, said 
Capgaroupe. 

— Here’s the end of a rope, said 
Jacques Quatourze. 

The doctor corked the gourd with 
the rope’s end, and said : 

— Some pitch. 

Galdeazun went forward, took a 
handful of tow, and with it unhooked 
the grenade-shell, which was' dying out, 
from the stem, and carried it to the 
doctor half full of boiling pitch. 

The doctor plunged the neck of the 
gourd into the pitch, and drew it out. 

The gourd, that contained the parch- 
ment signed by all of them, was corked 
and pitched. 

— All is over, said the doctor. 

And from all mouths went forth, 
vaguely stammered in various tongues, 
the lugubrious murmur of catacombs. 

— So be it ! 

— Mea culpa ! 

— Asi sea ! * 

— Aro rai f 

— Amen I 

One might have imagined that one 
heard sombre voices of Babel reechoing 

* “So be itl” 

+ “'Well and good! ” (Roman 


Y3 

through the gloom, at the fearful re- 
fusal of Heaven to hear them. 

The doctor turned his back upon his 
associates in crimes and despair, and 
took a few steps toward the side. Hav- 
ing reached the edge of the wreck, he 
peered into the Infinite, and said with 
deep accent : 

— Bist du bei mihr ? * 

He was speaking probably to some 
spectre. 

The wreck was going down. 

Behind the doctor all were dreaming. 
Prayer is an irresistible force. They 
did not bend, they folded themselves. 
There was something of the involuntary 
in their contrition. They hung down, 
as a sail hangs down when there is no 
breeze ; and the haggard group assumed 
by degrees, with clasped hands and 
foreheads lowered, the attitude, varied 
but crushed, of a despairing confidence 
in God. It were hard to say what solemn 
expression, borrowed from the gloom, 
was outlined on these sinister faces. 

The ctor returned to them. What- 
ever his past, the old man was great in 
presence of the final issue. The univer- 
sal reticence around preoccupied, with- 
out disconcerting him. It was the man, 
who is not taken by surprise. There 
was upon him a tranquil horror. The 
majesty of God comprehended was in 
his countenance. 

This ruffian, aged and thoughtful, 
had, without suspecting it, assumed a 
pontifical aspect. 

He said : 

— Pay attention ! 

He looked out for a moment into 
space, and added : 

— How we are about to die. 

Then he took the torch from the 
hands of Ave-Maria, and shook it. 

A flame sprang from it, and passed 
away into the night. 

And the doctor threw the torch into 
the sea. 

* “ Art thou near me ? ” 


74 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


The torch went out. All brightness 
vanished. There was no longer any 
thing but the immense unexplored ob- 
scurity. It was in some respects as 
though the tomb was closing. 

In this eclipse the doctor was heard 
to say : 

— Let us pray. 

All fell upon their knees. 

It was no longer in the snow ; it was 
in the water that they knelt. 

They had no more than some few 
minutes. 

^ The doctor alone remained standing 
up. The flakes of snow, as they fell 
upon him, starred him with white tears, 
and made him visible against the back- 
ground of darkness. He might have 
been called the speaking statue of the 
dusk. 

The doctor made the sign of the cross, 
and raised his voice, while beneath his 
feet began that rocking motion, almost 
indistinct, which precedes the instant 
when a wreck is about to plunge down. 
He said : 

— Pater noster, qui es in coelis. 

The Provencal repeated in French : 

— Notre Fere qui etes aux deux ! 

The Irishwoman took it up in the 
Welsh tongue, understood by the Bis- 
cayan woman : 

— Ar nachair ata ar neamh. 

The doctor continued : 

— Sanctificetur nomen tuum. 

— Hallowed be Thy name, said the 
Provencal. 

— Haomhthar hainm. said the Irish- 
woman. 

— Adveniat regnum tuum, pursued 
the doctor. 

— Thy kingdom come, said the Pro- 
vencal. 

— Tigeadh do rioghachd, said the 
Irishwoman. 

The kneelers had the water up to 
their shoulders. The doctor went 
on : 

— Fiat voluntas tua. , 


— Thy will be done, lisped out the 
Provencal. 

And the Irishwoman and the Bis- 
cayan wornan ejaculated this cry: 

— Deuntar do thoil ar an HhaMmb! 

— Sicut in cobIo, sicut in terrJi, said 
the doctor. 

Ho voice made response. 

He closed his eyes. All the heads 
were submerged. Hot one of them 
had stood up. They had allowed them- 
selves to be drowned, kneeling. 

The doctor took in his right hand 
the gourd, which he had laid upon the 
companion, and raised it above his 
head. 

The wreck went down. 

As it sunk, the doctor murmured the 
rest of the prayer. 

His bust was above water for a mo- 
ment, then his head, then nothing more 
than his arm holding the gourd, as 
though he were showing it to the In- 
finite. 

The arm disappeared. The deep sea 
had no more wrinkles than a ton of oil. 
The snow continued to fall. 

Something was swimming, and float- 
ed away in the shadows. It was the 
gourd, corked and pitched, that its 
wicker covering had kept up. 


P BOOK III. 

TEE CHILD AND THE NIGHT. 

I. 

CHESS-niLL. 

The storm was no less severe on 
land than at sea. 

The same ferocious unchaining had 
taken place around the child who was 
abandoned. The feeble and the inno- 
cent become what they may, when 
blind forces expend their unconscion- 
able anger. The shadow has no dis- 
cernment; and objects have not the 
clemency attributed to them. 


CHESS-HILL. 


15 


There was very little wind on shore. 
The cold was indescribably motionless. 
IS'o hailstones. The thickness of the 
falling snow was fearful. 

Hailstones strike, harass, bruise, 
deafen, crush; flakes are worse. Inex- 
orable and soft, the flake does its work 
in silence. If you touch it, it melts. 
It is pure, as the hypocrite is candid. 
It is by whitenesses heaped up, that 
the flake arrives at the avalanche, and 
the knave at crime. 

The boy had continued to advance 
in the fog. The fog is a pulpy ob- 
stacle; thence its perils. It yields, 
and persists. Fog, like snow, is full 
of treachery. The child, strange strag- 
gler in the midst of all these risks, had 
succeeded in reaching the foot of the 
descent, and had entered upon Chess- 
Hill. He was, though not aware of it, 
upon an isthmus, having the ocean on 
two sides, and unable to make a false 
step, in this mist, this snow, this ob- 
scurity, without falling, on his right, 
into the deep water of the bay; on his 
left, into the raging waves of the high 
sea. He walked, ignorant, between 
two abysses. 

The isthmus of Portland was at this 
period singularly rough and rude. It 
retains nothing now of its configura- 
tion then. Since the idea has obtained 
of working Portland stone into Eoman 
cement, the whole rock has undergone 
a remodelling, that has done away 
with its primitive look. You may still 
find there calcareous lias, schist, and 
trap, growing out of banks of con- 
glomerate, as the tooth out of the gum ; 
but the pickaxe has broken up and 
levelled all those shaggy and rough 
peaks, whereon the ospreys would 
make their frightful perch. There are 
no more heights whereon might ren- 
dezvous the foul birds that vomit and 
the stercorary tribe, which, like the 
envious, are addicted to defiling high 
places. One would look in vain tor 


the monolith, called Godolphin, an old 
Welsh word that signifies “white 
eagle.” One may gather still, in sum- 
mer, upon this ground, which is per- 
forated and in holes like a sponge, 
rosemary, pennyroyal, wild hyssop, 
sea-fennel, which, infused, makes a 
good cordial, and that herb, full of 
knots, that grows out of the sand, and 
is used for matting ; but no more am- 
bergris is picked up there, nor black tin, 
nor that triple kind of slate, partly 
green, partly blue, partly of the color 
of sage-leaves. The foxes, the badgers, 
the otters, the martens, have disap- 
peared. There were formerly chamois 
in these Portland ridges, as at the far- 
ther point of Cornwall ; but they are 
no longer there. There is fishing still, 
in certain hollows, for plaice and pil- 
chard; but the salmon, scared away, 
no longer ascend the Wey between 
Saint Michel and Hoal, to deposit their 
spawn. One sees no more, as in the 
time of Elizabeth, those old and un- 
known 1/rds, as large as hawks, that 
split an apple in halves and only cat 
the pips. One sees no more of those 
rooks, Cornish choughs in English, 
Pyrrhocorax in Latin, which were ma- 
licious enough to let fall lighted vine- 
twigs upon roofs of thatch. One sees 
no more that winged sorcerer, the 
petrel, an emigrant from the Scottish 
archipelago, that ejected an oil from 
his beak, which the islanders burned 
in their lamps. One meets no more, in 
the evening, in the swashes of the ebb, 
the old legendary neitse, with feet of 
pig and bleat of calf. The tide no 
longer throws upon these sands the 
mustached seal, with twisted ears and 
pointed grinders, dragging himself 
upon nailless paws. In this Portland, 
not to be recognized in our day, there 
have never been nightingales, because 
there were no forests ; but the falcons, 
the swans, and the sea-geese have 
flown away. The Portland sheep of 


76 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


tlio present time are fat in flesh and 
fine in wool ; the few sheep that fed, 
two centuries ago, upon this salted 
grass, were small and tough, and had 
rough fleeces, as became the Celtic 
flocks, once tended by garlic-eating 
shepherds, who lived a hundred years, 
and who, at half a mile distance, 
could pierce through breastplates with 
their arrows an ell in length. Uncul- 
tured land make^ poor wool. The 
Chess-Hill of to-day in no respect re- 
sembles the Chess-HiU of other times, 
so much has it been overturned by 
man, and by those furious winds from 
the Scilly Isles that eat into the very 
stones. 

To-day, this tongue of land has its 
railway, that leads to a pretty check- 
er-work of houses, called Chesilton; 
and there is a Portland station. Trains 
roll along, where sea-calves crawled. 

The isthmus of Portland, two hun- 
dred years ago, was an ass’s back, of 
sand, with a vertebral spine of rock. 

The danger had changed in form. 
What the boy had to fear in the de- 
scent was rolling to the bottom of the 
ridge ; on the isthmus, it was tumbling 
into the holes. Having had to deal 
with the precipice, he had to deal with 
the quagmire. Every thing is a trap, 
on the borders of the sea. The rock 
is slippery ; the sandy strand is mov- 
ing. The points of support are am- 
bushes. You are like a person who 
puts his foot upon panes of glass. All 
may suddenly crack beneath you ; a 
crack, through which you may disap- 
pear. The ocean has its triple under- 
ground, like a theatre well found in 
machinery. 

The long ridges of granite, on which 
the double declivity of an isthmus 
leans, are difficult to tread. You are 
troubled to find what is called, in setting 
scenes for the stage, the practicable. 
Man has no hospitality to expect from 
the ocean ; no more from the rock than 


from the wave. The bird and the fish 
are alone provided for by the sea. 
Isthmuses particularly are bare and 
jagged. The flood, that uses up and 
undermines them on either side, re- 
duces them to their most simple ex- 
pression. Everywhere, sharp promi- 
nences, crests, serrated edges, frightful 
tatters of broken stone, yawnings 
toothed like the much-indurated jaw 
of the shark, breaknecks of saturated 
moss, rapid slopes of rock leading into 
the foam. He who undertakes to trav- 
erse an isthmus, encounters at every step 
shapeless blocks as large as houses, figur- 
ing shin-bones, shoulder-blades, thigh- 
bones, a hideous anatomy of crags that 
are flayed. It is not for nothing that 
these striates of the borders of the sea 
are called ribs. The pedestrian draws 
himself as best he may out of this pell- 
mell of rubbish. To find a way across 
the system of bones in a gigantic car- 
cass — such is almost his work. 

Put a child at this labor of Her- 
cules ! 

Broad daylight might have been use- 
ful; it was night. A guide would 
have been necessary; he was alone. 
In lack of a guide a path would have 
aided him. There was no path. 

By instinct, he avoided the rows 
of jagged points in the rock, and fol- 
lowed the strand as much as he could. 
It was there that he encountered the 
quagmires. The quagmires multi- 
plied themselves before him in three 
forms — the quagmire of water, the 
quagmire of snow, the quagmire of 
sand. The last is the most formidable. 
It swallows one up inextricably. 

To know what one affronts is alarm- 
ing ; but to be ignorant of it is terrible. 
The child combated the unknown dan- 
ger. He was groping his way in some- 
thing that was, perchance, a tomb. 

No hesitation. He turned the rocks, 
avoided the crevasses, divined the pit- 
falls; submitted to the meanderings 


EFFECT OF SNOW. 


of obstacle ; but be advanced. Unable 
to proceed straight on, he walked 
steadily. 

He recoiled, at need, with prompt- 
ness. He knew how to snatch himself 
in time from the hideous glue of mov- 
ing sands. He shook off the snow that 
fell on him. He went into water, more 
than once, up to his knees. When he 
got out of it, his wet clothes were fro- 
zen all at once by the bitter cold of the 
night. He walked rapidly iu his stiff- 
ened garments. He had, however, had 
the wit to keep dry and warm over his 
breast his sailor’s reefing-jacket. He 
was, all the time, very hungry. 

The accidents of the abyss are in no 
sense limited; all is possible therein, 
even safety. The issue is invisible; 
but it may be found. How did the boy 
— enveloped in a stifling whirl of 
snow, lost on that marrow causeway be- 
tween the two open jaws of the gulf, 
and unable to see — contrive to trav- 
erse the isthmus? This is what he 
could not himself have told. He had 
slipped, clambered, rolled, sought, walk- 
ed, persevered — that is the whole of it. 
The secret of all triumphs. At the 
end of a little less than an hour, he 
felt that the soil was on the ascent ; he 
reached the other side ; he got out of 
Chess-Hill ; he was upon firm ground. 

The bridge which, to-day, unites 
Sandford-Oas to Smallmouth Sand, had 
no existence at that period. It is prob- 
able that, in his intelligent groping, he 
had remounted so far as to be opposite 
Wyke Pregis, where he then had a 
tongue of sand, a true natural causeway 
traversing the East Fleet. 

He was saved from the isthmus, but 
he found himself again face to face 
with the storm, with the winter, with 
the night. 

Before him was developed anew the 
sombre uncertainty of plains. 

He looked to the ground, searching 
for a path. 


11 

All at once he stooped down. 

He saw something on the ground, 
that seemed to him a trace. 

It was, in fact, a trace, the mark of 
a foot. The whiteness of the snow cut 
clear the impression, and made it very 
distinct. He studied it. It was the 
print of a naked foot, smaller than a 
man’s, larger than a child’s. 

Probably a woman’s foot. 

Beyond this footmark there was 
another, then another. The prints 
were successive, a step apart, and went 
far on into the plains toward the right 
hand. They were still fresh, and but 
slightly covered with snow. A woman 
had just passed along. 

This woman had been walking, and 
had gone in the direction where the 
boy had seen smoke. 

The child, his eyes fixed upon the 
impriPts, set himself to foUow them 
out. 

II. 

^ EFFECT OF SNOW. 

He went on, a certain time, upon 
this track. Unfortunately, the traces 
became le^ and less distinct. The 
snow was falling thick and fearful. It 
was the moment when the ork, under 
this same snow-storm, was agonizing 
on the high-sea. 

The boy, in distress like the vessel, 
but of another kind, having — in the in- 
extricable intercrossings of the dark- 
ness that rose before him — no other re- 
source than the footstep marked in the 
snow, clung to it, as to the thread of a 
labyrinth. 

Suddenly, either because the snow 
had at last effaced them, or from some 
other cause, the footprints ceased. All 
became smooth, level, of a piece, with- 
out spot or variation. There was 
nothing now but a white covering on 
the earth and a black covering on the 
sky. 


18 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


It was as if the woman who passed 
had flown awaj. 

The child at hay stooped and sought. 
In vain. As he rose, he had a sensa- 
tion of something indistinct which he 
heard without being sure of hearing. 
It was like a breath, or the shadow of 
a voice. It was human rather than 
bestial, and sepulchral rather than liv- 
ing. It was a noise, but the noise of a 
dream. 

lie looked and saw nothing. 

The vast solitude was before him, 
naked and livid. 

He listened. What he thought he 
had heard was lost. Perhaps he had 
heard nothing. He listened again. ‘ Si- 
lence everywhere. 

The mist was full of delusion. So he 
started again. Started at random, hav- 
ing no longer this footstep to guide 
him. 

He had scarcely moved when the 
noise recommenced. This time he 
could not doubt. It was a groaning, 
almost a sob. 

He turned. His eyes ran over the 
darkness. He saw nothing. 

The noise rose again. 

If the souls in prison can cry, they 
cry thus. 

Nothing so penetrating and poignant, 
and yet so weak, as this voice. Por 
voice it was. It came from a soul. 
There was the tremor of life in that 
murmur. And yet it seemed almost 
unconscious. It was something like a 
suffering that appealed, but without 
knowing that it was a suffering and 
that it made an appeal. This noise, 
first breath or last sigh as it might be, 
was equally removed from the death- 
rattle which closes life and the wail 
which ushers it in. It breathed, it 
choked, it wept. Dim supplication in 
the invisible. 

The boy examined attentively every- 
where, far and near, high and low. 
Nobody. Nothing. 


He listened. The voice was heard 
again. He perceived it distinctly. It 
was something like the bleating of a 
lamb. 

Then he was frightened and thought 
of fleeing. The groaning began again 
for the fourth time. It was curiously 
wretched and plaintive. One felt that 
after this last effort, more mechanical 
than voluntary, the cry would proba- 
bly die out. It was an expiring call, 
instinctively addressed to whatever 
succor might be floating in the universe ; 
a vague stammer of agony, directed to 
a possible Providence. The child 
advanced in the direction of the voice. 

Still he saw nothing. 

But he kept on, looking round sharp- 
ly. The complaint continued. Before, 
inarticulate and confused, it had now 
become clear and almost shriU. The 
child was close to the voice. But 
where was it ? 

He was near a complaint. As it 
trembled into space, it passed alongside 
him. A human groan floating in the 
invisible, that was what he had met. 
At least such was his impression, dim 
as the fog in which he was lost. 

As he hesitated between an instinct 
impelling him to fly, and an instinct 
telling him to stay, he saw, in the snow 
at his feet, some steps before him, a 
protuberance, the size of a human 
figure, a small elevation, low, long, and 
narrow, at the side of a crevice, like a 
sepulchre in a white cemetery. 

At the same moment the voice 
sounded. 

It came thence. 

The child stooped, squatted down be- 
fore the object, and began to clear it 
away with both hands. 

Under the snow which he was re- 
moving, the outlines of a form disclosed 
themselves, and suddenly beneath 
hands, in the hollow which he 
made, appeared a pale face. 

It was not this face that cried. 


EFFECT OF SNOW. 


79 


eyes were shut and its mouth open, hut 
full of snow. 

It was motionless. It stirred not 
under the child’s hand. Though his 
fingers were numb with frost, he start- 
ed on touching the cold of this face. It 
was a woman’s head. The dishevelled 
locks were mixed up with the snow. 
The woman was dead. 

The child went to work again at re- 
moving the snow. He liberated the 
dead woman’s elbow, then the upper 
part of the trunk, the flesh of which 
was visible under its rags. 

Suddenly he felt under his groping 
touch a slight motion. It was some 
small thing, wrapped up and stirring. 
The boy removed the snow briskly, 
and discovered a wretched abortion of 
a body, puny, wan with cold, but still 
alive, naked on the dead woman’s naked 
bosom. 

It was a little girl. 

She was swaddled, but imperfectly, 
and had struggled herself out of her 
rags. Her poor thin limbs under her, 
and her breath above her, had slightly 
melted the snow. A nurse would have 
given her five or six months, but she 
might have been a year old, for growth 
in poverty undergoes heart-rending 
diminutions, which sometimes end in 
rickets. "When her face was exposed 
to the air she uttered a cry, the con- 
tinuation of her sob of distress. The 
mother must have been very dead, not 
to have heard that sob. 

The boy took the little girl in his 
arms. 

The mother, stiff in death, had a sin- 
ister aspect. A spectral radiation ema- 
nated from her face. Her mouth, gap- 
ing and void of breath, seemed begin- 
ning, in the doubtful language of the 
shades, an answer to the questions put 
to the dead in the invisible world. 
There was a wan reflection of the 
frozen plains on this face. One might 
see the forehead under the brown locks 
6 


which showed its youth, the almost 
angry knitting of the brows, the closed 
nostrils, the shut lids, the eyelashes 
glued together by the hoar-frost, and, 
from the corner of the eyes to the cor- 
ner of the lips, the deep channel of 
tears. The snow lighted up the corpse. 
Winter and the tomb do each other no 
harm. The carcass is the icicle of the 
man. The nakedness of the breasts 
was pathetic. They had done their 
work ; they boro the sublime impress 
of life given by a being whose own life 
is failing; in them maternal majesty 
replaced virgin purity. At the extrem- 
ity of one of the nipples hung a white 
pearl. It was a frozen drop of milk. 

Let us say at once, that a few hours 
before, a beggar-woman with her suck- 
ing-child, she also seeking a lair, had 
lost herself in these plains -where the 
lost boy was now passing in his turn. 
Benumbed, she had fallen under the 
storm and had been unable to raise her- 
self again. The snow-drift had whelmed 
her. Sl^e had pressed her daughter as 
close to her bosom as she could, and 
died. 

The little girl had tried to suck the 
marble body. Bark trust implanted by 
Nature, for it seems as if a mother 
might give suck for the last time, even 
after her last sigh. 

But either the child’s mouth could 
not find the nipple, or the drop of milk, 
stolen by Death,” had frozen, and the 
suckling, more used to the cradle than 
to the tomb, had cried out. 

The little deserted boy had heard the 
little dying girl. 

He had dug her up. 

He had taken her in his arms. 

When the little girl felt herself in 
some one’s arms, she stopped crying. 
The faces of the two children touched, 
and the blue lips of the suckling felt for 
the boy’s cheek as if it was a breast. 

She had almost reached the moment 
when the congealed blood stops the 


80 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


heart. The mother had communicated 
to her somewhat of her own death. A 
corpse is catching, it is a chill that 
spreads. Iler feet and her hands, her 
arms and her knees, were almost para- 
lyzed by the frost. The boy perceived 
this terrible coldness. 

He had on a dry and warm garment, 
his wiollen jacket. He laid the suck- 
ling on the breast of the corpse, took 
off his jacket, wrapped the child in it, 
lifted her up again, and, now almost 
naked to the puifs of snow which the 
gale blew, started again, carrying the 
little one in his arms. 

The girl having succeeded in finding 
the boy’s cheek again, pressed her 
mouth to it, and recovering her warmth 
fell asleep. First kiss of these two 
souls in the darkness. 

The mother remained lying there, 
her back on the snow, her face to the 
night. But at the moment when the 
little boy stripped himself to clothe the 
little girl, perhaps from the depths of 
infinity where she was, that mother 
saw him. 

III. 

EVERY SAD WAY HAS ITS EXTRA BUR- 
DEN. 

Bather more than four hours had 
passed since the ork departed from 
Portland Creek, leaving this boy on the 
shore. During those long hours since 
he was abandoned, during all this time 
that he had been walking on, he had 
met, in the human society which he 
was perhaps about to enter, but three 
persons, a man, a woman, and a child. 
A man, that man on the hill ; a woman, 
that woman in the snow ; a child, this 
little girl whom he held in his arms. 

He was worn out with fatigue and 
hunger. "With less strength and an 
additional burden, he advanced more 
resolutely than ever. 

He was now almost without clothes. 


The few rags that were left on him, 
hardened by the frost, were sharp as 
glass and took off his skin. He was 
growing cold, but the other child was 
growing warm. "What he lost was not 
lost, she gained it. He observed this 
warmth, which was a new lease of life 
for the poor little girl. He continued 
to advance. 

From time to time, without ceasing 
to hold her firmly, he stooped down, 
took a handful of snow with one hand, 
and rubbed his feet with it to keep 
them from freezing. 

At other times, feeling his throat on 
fire, he placed in his mouth a little of 
this snow and sucked it, which deceived 
his thirst a moment, but changed it in- 
to fever. The relief was an aggrava- 
tion. 

By dint of its violence the storm had 
become shapeless; deluges of snow are 
possible, this was one. In its fury it 
lashed the shore at the same time that 
it upturned the sea. It was probably 
the moment when the lost ork was 
breaking up in the confiict of the 
shoals. 

Under this blast, always walking 
eastward, he crossed wide expanses of 
snow. He knew not the hour. For a 
long time he had seen no more smoke. 
Hocturnal signs are easily effaced ; be- 
sides, it was past the time when fires 
are extinguished; finally, he might 
have been mistaken, and possibly there 
w’-as neither town nor village in the 
direction whither lie was going. 

In this doubt he persevered. 

Two or three times the little one 
cried. Then he imparted to his walk 
a rocking motion, and she was quieted 
and hushed. She finished by falling 
fast and sound asleep. Shivering him- 
self, he felt that she was warm. 

Frequently he tightened the folds of 
the jacket about the little girl’s neck, 
so that the frost could not introduce it- ■ 
self by any opening, and that no melted 


EVEEY SAD WAY HAS ITS EXTEA BUEDEN. 


snow might trickle between the gar- 
ment and the child. 

The plain was undulating. On its 
descending slopes the snow, heaped up 
by the wind in the bends of land, was 
so high for a little fellow like him that 
he sank into it almost entirely and had 
to walk half buried. Still he walked, 
and pushed the snow aside with his 
knees. 

The ravine surmounted, he arrived 
on highlands swept by the gale, where 
the snow was thin ; there he found a 
glazing of frost. 

The warm breath of the little girl 
fanned his cheek, restored his warmth 
a moment, then stopped and froze in 
his hair, where it made an icicle. 

He was sensible of an additional dan- 
ger ; he could no longer fall. He felt 
that he would not be able to rise again. 
He was broken down with weariness, 
the weight of the darkness would have 
fixed him to the ground, like that dead 
woman, and the ice would have sol- 
dered him alive to the earth. He had lost 
his way on the slopes of precipices and 
escaped, he had tripped into holes and 
crept out of them ; but now a simple 
fall was death. A misstep opened 
the tomb. He must not slip. He 
would not have strength even to get on 
his knees again. 

How every thing around him was 
slippery, all was hoar-frost and hard- 
ened ice. 

The little girl whom he carried in 
his arms made his progress frightfully 
difficult. Hot only was she a weight, 
and an over-weight for his weariness 
and exhaustion, but she was an embar- 
rassment. She occupied both his arms, 
and for one whose road is over glazed 
frost, both arms are a natural and 
necessary balance. 

This balance he had to do without. 

He did without it, and walked on, 
not knowing what would become of 
him under his load. 


81 

This little one was the drop that made 
his cup of distress overflow. 

' He proceeded, wavering at every step, 
as if on a loose board, and accomplish- 
ing miracles of equilibrium, with none 
to see him. And yet, perhaps, let us 
say it again, he was followed on his 
doleful way by two eyes, open in the 
shadowy distance — the eye of the moth- 
er, and the eye of God. 

He staggered, lost his balance, re- 
established it, kept watch on the child, 
replaced some part of the garment on 
her, covered her head, went on, lost his 
balance again, slipped, then recovered 
himself. The wind was cowardly enough 
to jostle him. 

Probably he went much farther than 
was necessary. He was apparently in 
those plains where the Bincleaves farm 
was afterward established, between 
what is now called Spring-Gardens and 
the Parsonage House. Dairy-farms and 
cottages now, wastes then. Often less 
than a century separates a steppe from 
a city.^ 

Suddenly, as the glacial squall whicli 
blinded him had an intermission, he per- 
ceived at a little distance before him a 
group of gables and chimneys, relieved 
by the snow against the sky, the reverse 
of a silhouette, a town sketched in white 
upon the black horizon, something like 
what one would call now-a-days a neg- 
ative proof. 

Roofs, dwellings, a sleeping-place! 
He was somewhere, then I He felt the 
ineffable encouragement of hope. His 
emotions were those of the lookout of 
a lost ship, when he cries land ! He 
hastened his steps. 

He was reaching men at last. He was 
going to arrive among the living. Hoth- 
ing then to fear. He had in him the 
sudden glow of security. That from 
which he was escaping had no more 
existence. There would be no more 
night now, nor winter, nor storm. It 
seemed to him that every possibility of 


82 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


evil was thenceforth behind him. The 
girl was no longer a burden. He al- 
most ran. 

His look was fixed on those roofs. 
Life was there. He never took his eyes 
off them. The dead might gaze thus at 
something that appeared through the 
half-opened lid of the tomb. 

These were the chimneys whose 
smoke he had seen. 

But no smoke rose from them now. 

He did not take long to reach the 
habitations. He arrived at a suburb of 
the town, which was an open street. 
The fashion of closing streets at night 
was then going out. 

The street began with two houses. 
In these two houses no candle or lamp 
was to be seen, no more than in all the 
street, nor yet in all the town, as far as 
the eye could reach. 

The house on the right was rather 
a roof than a house ; nothing could be 
meaner ; the walls loam, and the roof 
straw ; there was more thatch than 
wall. A large nettle, springing from 
the foot of the wall, touched the rim of 
the roof. This hut had but one door, 
which looked like a cat-hole, and one 
garret window. All shut. An inhabit- 
ed sty alongside showed that the hovel 
was also inhabited. 

The house on the left was wide and 
high, all of stone, with a slate roof. 
Shut, too. The rich man’s home op- 
posite the poor man’s. 

The boy did not hesitate. He went 
up to fhe large house. The folding- 
door, a massive oak plank checkered 
with big nails, was one of those sure 
to have behind it a stout provision of 
bolts and locks. There was on it an 
iron knocker. 

He lifted the knocker, and with some 
difficulty, for his congealed hands were 
more like stumps ; he knocked once. 

N'o answer. 

He knocked a second time, two 
knocks. 


There was no stir in the house. 

He knocked a third time. Hothing. 

He understood that they vrere asleep, 
or did not care to get up. 

Then he turned to the home of pov- 
erty. He took up a pebble from the 
snow and knocked at the low door. 

Ho answer. 

He raised himself on tiptoe and 
struck with his stone on the window, 
softly enough not to break the glass, 
hard enough to be heard. 

Ho voice answered, no step stirred, 
no candle was lighted. 

He thought that there also they did 
not choose to awake. 

There was the same deafness to the 
appeal of poor devils, in the stone man- 
sion and the thatched hut. 

The boy decided to push on farther. 
He penetrated the defile of houses 
which stretched before him, so dark 
that it looked like the opening between 
two cliffs rather than the entrance of a 
town. 

lY. 

THE DESEET UXDEE ANOTHEE FOEM. 

He had just entered 'Weymouth. 

The Weymouth of that time was not 
the respectable and superb Weymouth 
of to-day. This old Weymouth had not, 
like the present one, an irreproachable 
rectilinear quay, with a statue and an 
inn in honor of George III. This was 
owing to the fact that George III. was 
not born. For the same reason, there 
had not yet been sketched on the green 
slope of the west hill, flat on the ground, 
by means of turf stripped and chalk ex- 
posed, that white horse an acre long, 
carrying a king on his back, and turn- 
ing tail, still in honor of George III., to 
the town. Sm’ely these honors were 
merited. George III., having lost in his 
old age the wits that he never had in 
his youth, is not responsible for the 
calamities of his reign. He was a harm- 


TIIE DE8EBT UNDER ANOTHER FORM. 


83 


less madman. Why should he not have 
statues ? 

The Weymouth of a hundred and 
eighty years ago was about as symmet- 
rical as a handful of jackstraws mixed 
up. The Astaroth of the legend used 
to walk about on earth carrying on her 
back a wallet, in which there was a 
little of every thing, even good wives in 
their houses. A jumble of huts fallen 
from this demon’s bag would give an 
idea of the old, irregular Weymouth. 
That is, adding the good wives in the 
huts. There remains a specimen of these 
buildings, the Musicians’ House. A con- 
fused mass of wooden sheds, carved and 
worm-eaten (which is another kind of 
carving), shapeless, shaky, overhanging 
buildings — some with columns, leaning 
one against another to avoid falling be- 
fore the sea- wind, and leaving between 
them narrow intervals of crooked and 
inconvenient streets, lanes, and squares 
often inundated by the equinoctial tides, 
a pile of old grandmotherly houses 
grouped around an ancestral church; 
such was Weymouth. It was a sort of 
old Norman village stranded on the 
English coast. 

The traveller, if he entered the tav- 
ern, now replaced by the hotel, instead 
of gallantly paying a pound for a fried 
sole and a bottle of wine, suffered the 
humiliation of eating a twopenny chow- 
der, and a good one, for that matter. 
It was lamentable. 

The lost child, carrying the foundling, 
followed the first street, then the second, 
then a third. He raised his eyes, look- 
ing for lighted windows in the different 
stories and on the roofs, but all was 
closed and dark. Occasionally he 
knocked at the doors. No one an- 
swered. Nothing makes people so stony- 
hearted as lying warm between two 
sheets. His noises and motions had final- 
ly waked the little girl. He knew it be- 
cause he felt her sucking his cheek. She 
did not cry, thinking she had a mother. 


He was in danger of prowling about 
a long while in the cross-lanes of Scram- 
bridge, where there were then more 
crops than houses, and more thorn 
hedges than buildings; but just in time he 
entered a passage which still exists near 
Trinity School. This passage brought 
him to a wharf, which was a rudi- 
mentary quay with a parapet, and on 
his right he made out a bridge. 

This bridge was the bridge of the 
Wey, joining Weymouth to Melcomb- 
Regis, and under the arches of which 
the harbor communicates with the 
Back Water. 

Weymouth was then a hamlet, sub- 
urb of Melcomb-Regis, town and har- 
bor ; to-day, Melcomb-Regis is a parish 
of W eymouth. The village has absorbed 
the town. This feat is due to the 
bridge. Bridges are odd sucking-ma- 
chines which draw off population, and 
sometimes make a river quarter grow 
at the expense of its opposite neighbor. 

The boy went to the bridge, which 
at tly.t time was a footway of covered 
plank. He crossed the footway. 

Thanks to the roof of the bridge, there 
was no snow on the flooring. His bare 
feet had a moment of comfort in walk- 
ing on the dry planks. 

The bridge crossed, he found himself 
in Melcomb-Regis. 

There he found fewer wooden houses 
than stone ones. It was no longer the 
suburb, but the town. The bridge 
opened upon a tolerably handsome 
street, which was Saint Thomas Street. 
He entered it. The houses presented 
high carved gables, with shop fronts here 
and there. He began knocking at the 
doors a;gain. He had not strengtli 
enough left to call and shout. 

At Melcomb-Regis, as at Weymouth, 
no one stirred. All the doors had been 
well double-locked. The windows were 
covered by their blinds as eyes are by 
their lids. Every precaution had been 
taken against the disagreeable start 


84 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


whicli results from being suddenly 
awaked. 

The little wanderer felt the indefin- 
able oppression of the sleeping town. 
A vertigo emanates from the silence of 
these paralyzed ant-hills. All these leth- 
argies combine their nightmares; you 
are mobbed by sleepers; a vapor of 
dreams is evolved from these prostrate 
human bodies. Sleep has dark neigh- 
borhoods outside of life; the decom- 
posed thought of the sleeping floats above 
them, a half-dead, half-living emanation, 
and unites itself with all the possible 
or probable thought in space. Hence 
strange entanglements. The transpar- 
ent opacity of the dream-cloud veils 
the spirit-star. Above those closed 
eyelids, in which vision has replaced 
sight, a spectral disintegration of pro- 
files and looks spreads itself in the im- 
palpable. Mysterious scattered exist- 
ences fuse themselves into our life, 
through that boundary of death called 
sleep. These intertwinings of shades 
and souls fill the air. Even he who is 
not asleep feels oppressed by this sur- 
rounding of dark and ominous life. The 
circulating chimera worries him like a 
guessed reality. The man wide-awake, 
whose road lies across the dreams of 
others, dimly repels passing forms, has 
or thinks he has the vague horror of 
hostile contacts with the invisible, and 
feels every instant the doubtful jostle 
of something inexpressible, which van- 
ishes as it meets him. Such progress 
in the midst of the nocturnal diffusion 
of dreams is something like walking 
through a forest. 

This is what we call being afraid 
without knowing why. 

What a man experiences, a child ex- 
periences still more. This uneasy feel- 
ing of nightly terror, augmented by the 
spectral houses, was an additional ag- 
gravation of the sad circumstances 
against which he struggled. 

He entered Oonycar Lane, and per- 


ceived at the end of this alley the Back 
Water, which he took for the ocean; he 
no longer knew which way the sea lay; 
he retraced his steps, turned to the 
left by Maiden Street, and went back as 
far as Saint Alban’s Eow. 

There he knocked violently on the 
doors of the first houses he met, quite 
at random and without choice. These 
knocks, in which he expended his last 
energy, were irregular and jerky, with 
intermissions and returns almost wrath- 
ful. It was the beating of his fever. 

A voice answered. 

That of the hour. 

Three in the morning sounded slowly 
behind him from the old belfry of Saint 
Nicholas. 

Then all was still again. 

It may seem surprising that not one 
inhabitant even half-opened a window. 
But this silence can be in some measure 
explained. It must be stated that, just 
before January, 1690, there had been a 
tolerably severe pestilence in London, 
and that the fear of taking in sick vaga- 
bonds caused a certain diminution of 
hospitality everywhere. One would not 
even half-open a window, for fear of 
breathing the air which they had in- 
fected. 

The child found the coldness of men 
more .terrible than the coldness of the 
night. It is a coldness with a will in 
it. He felt an anguish of heart, a dis- 
couragement, which he had not felt in 
the wilds. Now that he had entered 
into the life of all the world, he re- 
mained alone. He had understood the 
unpitying waste, but the inexorable 
town was too much for him. 

The clock, whose strokes he had just 
counted, overwhelmed him still more. 
On certain occasions, there is nothing 
that freezes like a clock striking. It is 
a declaration of indifference ; eternity 
saying. What care I ? 

He stopped. And it is not certain but 
that in that melancholy moment he asked 


MISANTHROPY PLAYING ITS PRANKS. 


85 


himself if it was not the simplest way 
to lie down and die. But the little girl 
laid her head on his shoulder and went 
to sleep again. This vague confidence 
encouraged him to start again. 

He felt that he was a support, he, 
around whom every thing was giving 
way. It was a profound call of duty. 

jSTeither his ideas nor his situation 
were those of his age. Probably he 
did not understand them. He acted 
instinctively. He did what he did. 

He walked in the direction of John- 
stone Eow. 

Or rather he dragged himself, for 
he could walk no longer. He left 
Saint Mary Street, turned to the right, 
zigzagged about in the alleys, and, at 
the mouth of a winding gut between 
two buildings, found himself in a toler- 
ably large open space. It was doubt- 
ful ground, not built up, probably the 
spot where Chesterfield Place now is. 
There the houses ended. He saw the 
water on his left, and scarcely any- 
thing more of the town on his right. 

What was to become of him ? the 
country was beginning again. On • the 
east great sloping plains of snow 
marked the ridges of Radipole. Should 
he continue his journey, go on, and re- 
enter the waste? Should he turn 
back and reenter these streets ? What 
could he do between these two silences, 
the mute wilds and the deaf town? 
Which repulse should he choose ? 

There is a last anchor, and there is 
a last look. It was this last look which 
the poor despairing child cast around. 

Suddenly he heard a threat. 

V. 

MISANTHROPY PLAYING- ITS PRANKS. 

A GNASHING of teeth, doubtful, 
strange, alarming, reached him through 
the dark. 

It was enough to make one recoil. 


He advanced. To those who are terri- 
fied by silence, a roar is an agreeable 
variety. 

The fearful growl reassured him. 
The threat was a promise. There was 
something alive and awake there, even 
were it a wild beast. He walked in 
the direction of the gnashing. 

He turned an angle of the wall, and 
behind it, by the reflection of the snow 
and the sea, which made a kind of vast 
sepulchral illumination, he saw some- 
thing sheltered there somehow. It 
was a cart, unless it was a hut. A 
carriage, for it had wheels, and a 
dwelling, for it had a roof. Prom the 
roof rose a pipe, and from the pipe a 
smoke. This smoke was ruddy, which 
seemed to denote a pretty good fire 
inside. Behind, projecting liinges in- 
dicated a door, and in the middle of 
this door a square opening allowed 
gleams of light to bo seen in the hut. 
He approached. 

Whatever had gnashed its teeth 
heard him coming. When he was 
closed to the hut the threat became fu- 
rious. It was no longer a growl, but a 
howl that he had to do with. He 
heard a harsh noise like that of a chain 
violently stretched, and suddenly un- 
der the door, in the space between the 
hind wheels, appeared two rows of 
sharp white teeth. 

As the throat showed itself between 
the wheels, a head peeped out of the 
window. 

— Quiet there ! said the head. 

The throat was silent. 

The head continued : 

— Any one there ? 

The boy replied : 

— Yes. 

— Who? 

—Me. 

— You? Who’s that? Wherefrom? 

— Tired, said the boy. 

— What o’clock is it ? 

— Cold. 




86 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


— What are you doing there ? 

— Hungry. 

The head answered : 

— Everybody can’t be as well off as 
a lord. Get out. 

The head retired, and the window 
closed. 

The boy bowed his forehead, hugged 
the sleeping child tighter, and mus- 
tered his strength to start again. He 
took some steps and was beginning to 
go away. 

But at the same time that the win- 
dow closed, the door opened. A step 
Avas let down. The voice, which had 
just spoken to the boy, called angrily 
from the depths of the hut. 

— Well, why don’t you come in ? 

The boy turned round. 

— Come in, will you ? repeated the 
voice. Who sent me a young scape- 
grace like that ? Cold and hungry, and 
Avon’t come in ? 

The child, at the same time repulsed 
and invited, remained motionless. The 
voice recommenced : 

— Come in, I tell you, you scamp ! 

He made up his mind, and placed his 
foot on the first round of the ladder. 

But there was a growl under the ve- 
hicle. He started back. The gaping 
throat reappeared. 

— Quiet ! cried the man’s voice. 

The throat went back, the growling 
stopped. 

— Up with you ! continued the man. 

The child ascended the three steps 
with difficulty. He was impeded by 
the other child, so benumbed, so 
wrapped and rolled up in the sou’west- 
er, that no part of her could be dis- 
tinguished ; she was only a little shape- 
less lump. 

He surmounted the three steps, and 
having reached the threshold stopped 
there. 

No candle burned in the hut, an 
economy probably due to poverty. 
The hovel was only lighted by the red 


air-hole of a cast-iron stove in which a 
fire of turf crackled. On the stove 
smoked a porringer and a pot, which 
certainly looked as if they held some- 
thing good. The agreeable odor of it 
was very perceptible. The dwelling 
had for furniture a chest, a bench, and 
an unlighted lantern, hung from the 
ceiling. On the wooden walls were 
some shelves supported by brackets, 
and a row of hooks and nails, with all 
sorts of things hanging to them. There 
were several stories of glass-ware and 
copper-ware, an alembic, a receiver 
much like those jugs for graining wax 
which are called markers, and a med- 
ley of queer objects which the child 
could not understand in the least, and 
which were the cooking utensils of a 
chemist. The hut was of an oblong 
shape, the stove in front. It was 
not a small room, it was hardly a large 
box. The outside Avas more lighted by 
the snow than the inside by the stove. 
Every thing in the hovel was dim and 
indistinct. Still a reflection of the fire- 
light on the ceiling allowed one to read 
there this . inscription in large letters, 
TJestjs Philosophee. 

In fact, the child was entering the 
house of Homo and Hrsus. He had 
just heard one growl and the other 
speak. 

Arrived on the threshold, he saw, 
near the stove, a tall, thin, hairless, old 
man, dressed in gray stuff; he was 
standing up, and his bald head touched 
the roof. He could not have risen on 
his toes ; the hut was a tight fit. 

— Come in, said the man, Avho was 
TJrsus. 

The boy entered. 

— Put your bundle there. 

The boy placed his burden on the 
chest, carefully, for fear of frightening 
and waking it. 

The man continued : 

— How softly you put it there I It 
might as Avell be a reliquary. Are you 


MISANTHEOPY PLAYING ITS PEANKS. 


afraid of cracking your tatters? Ah, 
the good-for-nothing wretch ! In the 
streets at this hour. "Who are you? 
Answer. No, don’t ! Here, this is the 
first thing ; you’re cold, warm yourself. 

And taking the lad by the shoulders, 
he pushed him before the stove. 

— "Well, you are wet enough! and 
frozen enough 1 The idea of coming into 
a house in such a state ! Here, take off 
that rotten stuff, young malefactor 1 

Clutching the boy with feverish sud- 
denness, he stripped off his rags with 
one hand, making lint of them in the 
process, while with the other hand he 
hooked down from a nail a man’s shirt, 
and one of those knit jackets which are 
now called kiss-me-quicks. 

— There are some duds. 

In the heap of rubbish he picked out 
a woollen rag, and rubbed with it before 
the fire the limbs of the dazzled and 
sinking child, who, in this moment of 
naked warmth, thought he was seeing 
and touching heaven. Having rubbed 
his limbs, the man wiped his feet. 

— Well, my dead man, you have 
nothing frozen. I was stupid enough 
to fear that there was something frozen, 
a hind-paw or a fore-paw. He won’t 
be disabled this time. Dress yourself 1 

The child slipped into the shirt, and 
the man put the knit jacket over it. 

— Now then. 

The man kicked the bench forward 
and seated the little boy on it, pushing 
him by the shoulders as before, then he 
showed him with his forefinger the 
porringer smoking on the stove. What 
the child caught a glimpse of in this 
porringer was some more heaven. 

Namely, a potato and a bit of bacon. 

— You’re hungry, eat. 

The man took from a shelf a crust 
of dry bread, and an iron fork, and 
handed them to the boy. The boy 
hesitated. 

— Must I lay the cloth for you? 
asked the man. 


87 

And he placed the porringer on the 
child’s lap. 

— Bite into that ! 

Hunger got the better of stupefac- 
tion ; the child began to eat. The poor 
creature devoured rather than fed. The 
joyous sound of the crunched bread 
filled the hut. The man kept grum- 
bling.. 

— Not so fast, you horrid gormandi- 
zer! What a glutton the wretch is! 
These hungry blackguards have a re- 
volting way of feeding. Just see a lord 
at supper! I have seen dukes eat in 
my life. They don’t eat, that’s aristo- 
cratic. They drink, though, that they 
do. Come, you little monkey, stuff 
yourself ! 

The want of eai*s, which character- 
izes a hungry belly, caused the child to 
pay small heed to this violence of epi- 
■ thet, modified too as it was by a charity 
of action, profitable inconsistency for 
him. For the moment he was absorbed 
by these two needs and two ecstasies, 
warmii^g himself and eating. 

Ursus continued to himself his haji- 
audible imprecation. 

— I have seen King James in person 
supping at the Banqueting-House where 
they go to look at the pictures of the 
renowned Kubens. His majesty touch- 
ed nothing. This beggar here browses — 
browses is the word — ^it comes from 
brute. What possessed me to come to 
this Weymouth, seven times devoted to 
the infernal gods? I have sold nothing 
since morning, talked to the snow, 
played the flute to the hurricane, not 
pocketed a farthing, and at niglit I have 
paupers on my hands ! Disgusting place ! 
There is a pitched battle between these 
lounging fools and me. 'They try to get 
off with giving me farthings, and I with 
giving them worthless drugs. Well, to- 
day not an idiot in the square, not a 
penny in the box. Eat, you imp of 
hell! Scrape and crunch! Nothing 
equals the impudence of sponges now-a- 


88 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


clays. Fatten at my expense, parasite. 
He is more than starved, he is mad, this 
creature. It’s not appetite. It’s fever. 
'Who knows ? Perhaps he has the 
plague. Have you the plague, young 
ruffian ? If he were to give it to Homo ! 
God forbid ! Let the rabble go, hut I 
don’t want my wolf to die. Come to 
think of it, I’m hungry too. Positively 
this is a disagreeable occurrence. I 
liave worked to-day far into the night. 
There are times in one’s life when one 
is hurried. I was in a hurry to-night 
to eat. I’m all alone, I make a fire, I 
have only a potato, a crust of bread, a 
mouthful of bacon, and a drop of milk. 
I put it to warm, I say to myself. Good ! 
I think I’m going to feast myself. Flop ! 
'tumbles in this crocodile upon me. He 
plants himself solidly between my pro- 
vision and me, and my larder is devas- 
tated. Eat, you pike, eat, you shark; 
how many rows of teeth have you in 
your maw, stuffier, young wolf? Ho, I 
withdraw the w’-ord, out of respect for 
the wolves. Absorb my provender, 
boa ! I have worked to-day my stomach 
empty, my throat crying out, ray pan- 
creatic ducts in disorder, and my en- 
ti-ails shattered, far, far into the night, 
and my reward is to see another eat. 
Hever mind, share and share. He will 
have the bread, the potato, and the 
bacon, but I shall have the milk. 

And at this moment a lamentable and 
prolonged cry sounded in the hut. The 
man pricked up his ears. 

— You’re crying now, sycophant! 
IWhat’s that for ? 

The boy turned. He was evidently 
not crying. He had his mouth full. 

The crying did not stop. 

The man went to the chest. 

— It’s the bundle that’s bawling ! 
Y alley of J ehoshaphat ! Here’s the bun- 
dle vociferating! TVhat’s the matter 
with your bundle that it is croak- 
ing? 

He unrolled the sou’wester. A child’s 


head emerged, the mouth open and 
crying. 

— Hallo ! who comes here ? said the 
man. AVhat’s this ? Another one. It’s 
not going to stop, then ? "Who’s there ? 
To arms ! Corporal, turn out the 
guard ! Second irruption ! "What have 
you brought me there, you young rob- 
ber ? You see clearly that she’s thirsty. 
Come, she must drink, this one. Good! 
Ho milk for me now. 

From a confused heap on a shelf he 
took a roll of bandage — linen, a sponge, 
and a phial, growling like a madman. 

— Damned country ! 

Then he looked at the little one. 

— It’s a girl. Can tell that by her 
yelping. She’s drenched, too. 

He tore offi her, as he had done offi 
the boy, the rags in which she was knot- 
ted rather than dressed, and wrapped 
her in a bit of coarse linen, shabby but 
clean and dry. This quick and abrupt 
toilet incensed the little girl. 

— She won’t stop mewing, said he. 

"With his teeth he cut offi a large 
strip of the sponge, tore from the roll a 
square piece of linen, drew out a bit. of 
thread from it, took from the stove a 
pot which contained milk, filled the 
phial with this milk, pushed the sponge 
half into the neck of the phial, covered 
the sponge with the linen, tied this 
extemporized cork with the thread, 
pressed the phial against his cheek to 
make sure that it was not too hot, and 
seized under his left arm the lost swad- 
dling, who continued to scream. 

— There, sup, you animal ! Take the 
breast ! And he placed the neck of the 
phial in her mouth. 

The little girl sucked greedily. 

He held the phial at the proper in- 
clination, muttering : 

— They’re all alike, the mean crea- 
tures ! "When they have what they want, 
they keep quiet. 

The child had sucked so energetical- 
ly, and seized with such eagerness the 


MISANTIIEOPY PLAYING ITS PEANKS. 


89 


apology for bosom presented lier by 
this surly providence, that she was 
seized with a fit of coughing. 

— You’re going to choke yourself, 
growled Ursus. A nice glutton you are ! 

He withdrew the sponge w'hich she 
was sucking, waited till the cough stop- 
ped, and then replaced the phial between 
her lips, saying, 

— Suck, you little vagabond. 

Meanwhile the boy had laid down 
his fork. A moment before, when he 
was eating, his looks expressed satisfac- 
tion. How they expressed gratitude. 
He saw the girl regaining life, and this 
consummation of the resurrection which 
he had begun filled his eyes with an 
ineflfiible expression. Ursus continued 
mumbling angry words between his 
gums. The poor boy at moments raised 
to TJrsus his eyes, moist with the inde- 
finable emotion which the poor creature, 
bullied and melted at the same time, 
felt without being able to express. 

Ursus addressed him furiously. 

— Well, eat away ! 

— And you ? said the child all trem- 
bling, with a tear in his eye. Won’t 
you have some ? 

— Eat it all, you imp ! There is not 
too much for you, since there wasn’t 
enough for me. 

The child resumed his fork, but ate 
nothing. 

— Eat, yelled Ursus. Wfiat have I 
to do with it ? Who’s talking to you 
about me? You wretched little bare- 
foot clerk of Hopenny parish, I tell you 
to eat it all. That’s what you’re here 
for, to eat, drink, and sleep. Eat, or 
I’ll pitch you out of doors, you and 
your brat ! 

. At this threat the boy recommenced 
eating. It did not take him long to 
finish what remained in the porringer. 

— This building has cracks, muttered 
Ursus ; the cold comes in at the win- 
dow. 

In fact a pane had been broken, by 


some jolt of the vehicle or some roguish 
boy’s stone. The piece of paper with 
which Ursus had repaired this damage 
was loosened. The wind entered there. 

He was half-seated on the box. The 
little girl, at the same time in his arms 
and on his knees, was voluptuously 
sucking the bottle in the dreamy beati- 
tude of a cherub before God or a child 
at the breast. 

— She’s tipsy, said Ursus. 

And he continued : 

— Preach sermons on temperance, 
will you ? 

While the little girl drank and the 
little boy ate, Ursus continued to vent 
his ill-humor. 

— Drunkenness commences at the 
cradle. It is worth while td be Arch- 
bishop Tillotson, and thundeis^gainst 
the abuse of liquor ! Abominable 
draught of wind ! And . my stove is 
old, too. It lets loose puffs of smoke 
enough to give one a disease of the 
eyes. I have the inconvenience of cold 
and fhe inconvenience of fire together. 
I can’t see clearly. This being here, 
who abuses my hospitality — well, I 
haven’t been able yet to distinguish the 
cur’s face. Comfort is lacking here. 
By Jupiter, I value highly exquisite 
banquets in well-protected rooms. I 
have missed my vocation. I was born 
to be sensual. The greatest of sages 
was Philoxenes, who wished for a 
crane’s neck, that he might enjoy the 
pleasures of the table at greater length. 
Zero of receipts to-day ! Nothing sold 
all day long ! What a calamity ! In- 
habitants, lackeys, and burgesses, here 
is the doctor, here is the medicine! 
You’re losing your time, old fellow. 
Pack up your drugs again. Everybody 
here is well. There’s a blessed town 
for you, with nobody sick in it! — ex- 
cept the sky, which has the diarrhoea. 
What a snow ! Anaxagoras taught that 
snow was black. He was right, for 
cold is darkness. Ice is night. What 


90 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


a blast ! I fancy those at ^ea have a 
nice time of it. A hurricane is the 
passing of devils, the tumult of ghouls 
galloping and rolling headlong, above 
our bags of bones. In the storm- 
cloud, this has a tail and that horns ; 
one has a flame for a tongue, another 
claws on his wings, a third a lord-chan- 
cellor’s paunch, a fourth an academi- 
cian’s pate ; you can tell a figure in each 
sound. Every new word has a difier- 
ent devil ; the ear hears them, the eye 
sees them; the tumult is a face. To be* 
sure, there are people at sea, it’s evi- 
dent. My friends, manage the tem- 
pest as well as you can ; I’ve enough 
to do to manage my life. Bah ! do I 
keep an inn? Why have I travellers 
arriving? The universal distress has 
even splashed into my poverty. Hide- 
ous drops of the great mud of humanity 
fall into my hut. I am given up to the 
voracity of passers-by. I am a prey. 
The prey of wretches dying of hunger. 
Winter, night, a pasteboard hovel, a 
poor friend under me outside, a storm, 
a potato, a fire as big as your fist, para- 
sites, the wind entering at every crack, 
not a penny, and bundles that fall a- 
barking! You open them, and find 
little beggar-wenches inside. Isn’t it 
like witchcraft ! And then the broken 
laws I Ah, vagabond with your vaga- 
bondess! Sly pickpocket, designing 
abortion ! Ah, you go about the streets 
after curfew ! If our good king knew 
it, he’s the man that would plant you 
nicely in a cell under-ground, to teach 
, you manners ! Master takes his walk 
at night with miss ! The thermometer 
at fifteen, bareheaded and barefooted ! 
That’s contrary to law. There are rules 
and ordinances, young rioter! Vaga- 
bonds are punished, honest folks who 
have houses of their own are defended 
and protected, kings are the fathers of 
their people. I am a householder, I am. 
You would have been whipped on the 
public square, if they had. caught you ; 


and served you right 1 There must be 
order in a state which has police. I 
have done wrong myself in not report- 
ing you to the constable. But I am like 
that, I understand the right and do the 
wrong. Ah the ruffian I to arrive here 
in that state! I didn’t remark their 
snow when they came in ; now it is all 
melted. Here is my whole house wet. 
I have an inundation within doors. I 
must burn an impossible lot of coal to 
dry up this lake. Coal, at twelve far- 
things the measure. How w'ill this hovel 
manage to hold three of us ? It’s all up 
with me now, I go into the nursing 
business, I shall have the future hope of 
England’s beggardom to wean. I shall 
have for employment, office, and func- 
tion, to shape the abortions of Mother 
Misery, to polish off the ugliness of 
gallows-birds in their tender age, and 
instruct young thieves in the principles 
of philosophy. The bear’s tongue does 
God’s rough-hewing. And to think 
that if I hadn’t been nibbled away for 
thirty years by such specimens, I should 
be rich ! Homo would be fat. I should 
have a medical cabinet full of rarities, 
as many surgical instl-uments as Doctor 
Linaire, King Henry YIII.’s surgeon, 
various animals of all kinds, Egyptian 
mummies, and other such things! I 
should belong to the college of doctors, 
and have the right to use the library 
built in 1652, by the celebrated Harvey, 
and to go and work in the lantern of 
the dome, from which you can see all 
the town of London. I might continue 
my calculations on the solar darkness, 
and prove that a caliginous vapor ema- 
nates from that heavenly body. This 
is the opinion of John Kepler, who w'as 
born the year before Saint Bartholo- 
mew’s day, and who w^as the emperor’s 
mathematician. The sun is a chimney 
wdiich smokes sometimes. So does my 
stove. My stove is no better than the 
sun. Yes, I should have made my for- 
tune, my appearance w’ould be quite dif- 


MISANTHROPY PLAYING ITS PRANKS. 


91 


ferent, I should not bo vulgar, I should 
not abase science in the cross-roads. Kor 
the people is not worthy of learning, 
since it is only a mob of fools, a con- 
fused mixture of ages, sexes, tempers, and 
conditions of every sort, which the wise 
men of all times have not hesitated to 
despise, and whose extravagance and 
fury the most moderate men justly ab- 
hor. All, I am tired of what is. After 
all, we don’t live long. It is soon over, 
our human life. Well, no, it is long. 
At intervals, that we may not be dis- 
couraged, that we may he stupid enough 
to consent to live, that we may not 
profit by the magnificent opportunities 
of hanging ourselves furnished by every 
cord and every nail, Kature makes be- 
lieve to take a little care of man. Not 
to-night though. Cunning Nature ! 
She makes the corn shoot, the grape 
ripen, the nightingale sing. From 
time to time a ray of sunshine or a glass 
of gin, that is what we call happiness. 
A little fringe of good around the im- 
mense shroud of evil. The devil has 
made the stufiL* of our life, and God 
makes the hem. Meanwhile, you have 
eaten my supper, young robber ! 

The infant, whom he still held in his 
arms, and very gently too, despite his 
anger, closed her eyes drowsily, a sign 
.of repletion. IJrsus examined the bot- 
tle and growled. 

— She has drunk it all, the little im- 
pudence ! 

He rose, and keeping the girl on his 
left arm, raised, with his right hand, 
the lid of the chest, and took from th^ 
inside a bear-skin, which, it will be re- 
membered, he called “his own real' 
skin.” 

While doing this he heard the other 
child eating, and looked askance at him. 

— It will be a pretty business if I 
must in future feed this gi’owing glut-, 
ton. I shall have a tape-worm in the 
belly of my trade. 

Still, with one hand, he spread as he 


best could the bear-skin on the chest, 
pushing with his elbow and managing 
his motions so as not to disturb the 
commencement of the child’s sleep. 
Then he laid her on the skin, upon the 
side nearest the fire. This done, he 
placed the empty phial on the stove, 
and exclaimed : 

— I know who’s thirsty. 

He looked into the pot; there re- 
mained some good spoonfuls of milk in 
it ; he raised it to his lips. Just as he 
was going to drink, his eye fell on the 
little girl. He replaced the pot on the 
stove, took the phial, uncorked it, 
poured in what remained of the milk, 
just enough to fill it, replaced the 
sponge, and retied the linen over the 
sponge round the neck. 

— I am hungry and thirsty for all 
that, he recommenced. 

And he added : 

. — When one can’t eat bread, one 
drinks water. 

Behind the stove there was a glimpse 
of a jig with a broken spout. 

He took it and offered it to the boy. 

— Do you want to drink ? 

The child drank and resumed his re- 
past. 

Once more IJrsus took the jug and 
raised it to his mouth. The tempera- 
ture of the water which it contained 
had been unequally affected by the 
neighborhood of the stove. He swal- 
lowed some mouthfuls and made a face. 

— Make-believe pure water, thou art 
like false friends! Lukewarm above 
and cold below. 

By this time the boy had finished 
supper. The porringer was more than 
emptied, it was scoured. He picked up 
and eat, abstractedly, some crumbs of 
bread scattered in the folds of the 
woollen garment and on his lap. 

IJrsus turned to him. 

— That’s not all. We two have to 
understand each other now. The mouth 
is not made alone for eating ; it is also 


•92 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


made for speaking. Now that you are 
warmed and stuffed, young animal, look 
out for yourself! You are going to an- 
swer my questions. Where do you 
come from ? 

The child replied : 

— I don’t know. 

— How ? you don’t know ! 

— I was left on the edge of the sea 
to-night. 

— Ah, the scamp! What’s your 
name? He is such a bad character 
that his relations have abandoned him. 

— I have no relations. 

— Please attend to my wishes, and 
observe that I don’t like people to tell 
me stories which are not true. You 
have some relations, for you have a 
sister. 

— That is not my sister. 

— She is not your sister ? 

— No. 

— What is she, then ? 

— A little girl that I found. 

— Found! 

— Yes. 

— How ? you picked that thing up ? 

— Yes. 

— Where? If you lie. I’ll extermi- 
nate you. 

— From a woman dead in the snow. 

— When? 

— An hour ago. 

— Where? 

— A league off. 

The frontal arches of Ursus con- 
tracted, and assumed the pointed form 
which characterizes the eyebrows of a 
philosopher who is moved. 

— Dead! there’s one that’s happy! 
We must leave her in her snow there. 
She is well off in it. Which way was 
it? 

— In the direction of the sea. 

— Did you cross the bridge? 

— Yes. 

Ursus opened the back window and 
examined the prospect outside. The 
weather had not changed for the bet- 


ter. The snow still fell, thick and 
gloomy. 

He closed the casement. 

He went to the broken pane, stopped 
the hole with a rag, put more turf in 
the stove, spread out as widely as he 
could the bear-skin on the chest, took 
a large book which he had in a corner 
and placed it under the head to serve 
as pillow, and on this bolster he laid 
the head of the little sleeping child. 

Then he turned to the boy : 

— Lie down there. 

The child obeyed, and stretched him- 
self at fuU length beside the little girl. 

Ursus rolled the skin round the two 
children and tucked it under their feet. 

Then he reached down from the shelf 
and knotted around his body a canvas 
girdle with a large pocket, probably 
containing a surgeon’s case of instru- 
ments and some bottles of elixirs. 

Next he unhooked the lantern from 
the ceiling and lit it. It was a dark- 
lautern, which, when lighted, left the 
children in the shadow. 

Ursus partly opened the door and said : 

— I’m going out. Don’t be afraid. 
I shall come back. Go to sleep. 

And lowering the steps he cried : 

— Homo ! 

An affectionate growl answered him. 

Ursus descended, lantern in hand. 
The step went up again, the door closed. 
The children remained alone. 

From without, a voice, the voice of 
Ursus, asked: 

— You boy, who have just eaten my 
supper, you are not asleep yet, are you? 

— No, replied the boy. 

— Well, then, if she squalls, give her 
the rest of the milk. 

The clank of a loosened chain w^as 
heard, and the noise of a man’s step and 
a beast’s, as they went away together. 

A few moments, and the two children 
slept profoundl}^ 

It was a strange, ineffable union of 
respirations, ignorance rather than chas- 


WAKING. 


93 


tity, a bridal nigbt before tbe birtli of 
sex. Tbe little boy and tbe little girl, 
naked and side by side, enjoyed during 
these silent hours a shadowy divine fu- 
sion ; as many dreams as are possible at 
that age, floated from one to the other ; 
under their closed lids was probably a 
starry light ; if the word marriage be not 
out of place here, they were man and 
wife as angels are angels^ Such inno- 
cence in such darkness, such purity in 
such embraces, these anticipations of 
heaven are only possible to infancy, 
and no immensity approaches the 
grandeur of these little beings. Of all 
gulfs this is deepest ; the terrible per- 
sistence of a dead man hanged in 
chains, the vast, unremitting fury of the 
ocean against a shipwrecked bark, the 
wide-spread whiteness of the snow 
covering buried forms — ^none of these 
equals in pathos two children’s mouths 
divinely joined in sleep, whose touch is 
not even a kiss. Perhaps betrothal, 
perhaps doom, the unknown overhangs 
this j uxtaposition. It is charming ; who 
knows if it is not terrifying ? One feels 
anguish of heart. Innocence, the off- 
spring of consecrated obscurity, is more 
supreme than virtue. They slept. They 
were at rest. They were warm. The 
nakedness of their intertwined bodies 
fused the virginity of their souls. They 
were there as in the nest of the infi- 
nite. 

VI. 

WAKING. 

The day began gloomily. A sad 
paleness entered the hut. It was the 
icy dawn. Its wan gleams, that brought 
out in mournful reality the spectral 
sketches of night, did not wake the 
children, who were sound asleep. The 
hovel was warm. Their two respira- 
tions sounded alternately like two quiet 
waters. ‘ no more hurricane 

outside. - of the dawn was 

slowly ta -i : ' ' ^ssion of the horizon. 


Like candles blown out one after the 
other, the constellations faded away. 
Only some large stars still held out. 
The deep chant of the infinite rose from 
the sea. 

The fire was not quite out. The 
dawn was gradually becoming day. 
The boy slept less than the girl. There 
was something of the watcher and the 
guardian about him. As a ray brighter 
than the rest traversed the glass, he 
opened his eyes. The sleep of child- 
hood ends in forgetfulness; he re- 
mained in a half-doze, without know- 
ing where he was, or what- he had near 
him, without trying to remember, look- 
ing at the ceiling, and vaguely puzzling 
his reverie with the letters of the in- 
scription TTrsus philosopher^ which he 
examined without deciphering, for he 
could not read. 

The noise of a key groping in a lock 
made him lift his head. 

The door turned on its hinges, the 
stairway swung. Ursus was coming 
home. ' He ascended the three steps, 
his extinguished lantern in his hand. 

At the same time there was a patter 
of four feet lightly mounting the stairs. 
It was Homo, following Ursus and 
coming home, too. 

The boy, now wide awake, gave a 
start. 

The wolf, probably hungry, had put 
on his morning grin, which showed all 
his teeth, and very white they were. 

He stopped half-way up, put his two 
fore-paws into the hut, leaving his legs 
on the threshold as a preacher leans 
his arms on the edge of th§ pulpit. He 
smelt at a distance the chest which he 
Avas not used to see thus occupied. His 
wolf’s figure, framed in the door, stood 
out black in the morning light. He 
decided and entered. 

Seeing the wolf in the hut, the boy 
rose up out of the skin and placed him- 
self before the little girl, who slept 
more soundly than ever. 




94 


SEA AND NIGHT. 


Ursus had just restored the lantern 
to its hook on the ceiling. Silently 
and with mechanical deliberation he 
unbuckled his girdle, in which his case 
of instruments was, and replaced it on 
a shelf. He looked at nothing and 
seemed to see nothing. His eyeballs 
were glassy. Something profound was 
at work in his mind. At length his 
thoughts came to light, as usual, by a 
rapid utterance of words. He cried 
out: 

— Decidedly happy! Dead, quite 
dead! 

He stooped down and placed a 
shovelful of turf on the fire, and, while 
poking it up, grumbled on. 

— I had trouble to find her. Un- 
known malice had plunged her under 
two feet of snow. Without Homo, who 
sees as clearly with his nose as Chris- 
topher Columbus did with his mind, I 
should be there still paddling about in 
the snow and playing .hide-and-seek 
with death. Diogenes took Ins lantern 
and looked for a man ; I took mine and 
looked for a woman; he found sarcasm, 
and I found mourning. How cold she 
was! I touched her hand, it was a 
stone. What silence in the eyes ! How 
can one be stupid enough to die and 
leave an infant behind ! It will not be 
comfortable keeping three in this box. 
What a bore! Well, I have a family 
now. Daughter and son. 

While Ursus was speaking. Homo 
had stolen close to the stove, the hand 
, .of the little sleeper hung down between 
the stove and the chest. The wolf be- 
gan to lick tH hand. 

He licked it ‘so softly that the girl 
• did not wake. 

Ursus turned round. 

— Good, Homo. I shall be father, 
and you uncle. Then he resumed his 
philosophical work of arranging the 
fire, without interrupting his aside. 

— Adoption. It’s decided. Besides, 
Homo consents. 


He stood up again. 

— I should like to know who is re- 
sponsible for this woman’s death. Is 
it man or . . . 

His eye looked into the air, but 
above the ceiling, and his mouth mur- 
mured : 

— Is it thou ? 

Then his forehead dropped as if un- 
der a weight, and he resumed : 

— The night has taken the trouble to 
kiU this woman. 

As he drew himself up again, his 
look met the face of the awakened boy, 
who was listening, to him. Ursus ad- 
dressed him abruptly : 

— What’s the reason you’re laugh- 
ing? 

The boy replied, 

— lam not laughing. 

Ursus had a sort of tremor, exam- 
ined him very attentively and silently, 
for some moments, and said, 

— Then you are frightful. 

The inside of the hut was so dimly 
lighted at night, that Ursus had not yet 
seen the boy’s face. The full day 
showed it to him. 

He placed his palms on the child’s 
shoulders, regarded his face with an 
attention more and more penetrating, 
and cried to him : 

— Don’t laugh any more! 

— I don’t laugh, said the child. 

Ursus shook from head to foot. 

— You do laugh, I tell you. 

Then shaking the child in a gi’asp 
which might arise from rage or pity, 
he asked in a violent tone : 

— Who made you so ? 

The child replied : 

— I don’t know what you mean. 

Ursus resumed : 

— How long have you had that laugh ? 

— I have always been so, said the 
child. 

Ursus turned to the chest, saying in 
a low tone : 

— I thought that business was out of 

V 


WAKING. 


95 


date. He took out very carefully, 
so as not to wake the little girl, the 
book which he had put under her head 
for a pillow. 

— Let us look at Conquest, he mut- 
tered. 

It was a bundle of folio sheets, 
bound in pai'chment. He ran through 
the leaves with his thumb, stopped at 
one, opened the book wide over the 
stove and read. 

— JDe Denasatis — here it is. 

And he went on. 

Bucca Jlssa usque ad aures^ gencivis 
denudatiSj nasoque murdridato^ masca 
eris et ridebis semper. 

— That is it exactly. 

And he replaced the book on one of 
the shelves, growling. 


— An incident, the investigation of 
which would be unwholesome. Laugh 
away, my boy I 

At this moment the little girl woke. 
Her “ good-morning ” was a cry. 

— Come, nurse, give her the breast, 
said TJrsus. 

The little girl had sat up. Hrsus 
took the bottle from the stove and 
gave it to her to suck. At this instant 
the sun was rising. He was just level 
with the horizon. His red rays en- 
tered through the glass, and struck the 
face of the girl which was turned tow- 
ard him. The child’s eyes, fixed on the 
sun, reflected his crimson roundness 
like two mirrors. The balls were mo- 
tionless ; the lids ^ilso. 

— Why, she’s blind ! cried TJrsus. 


7 




V 



PABT SECOND. 


BT THE KIlsrG’S OOMMAHD. 


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PART SECOND. 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


BOOK I. 

ETERNAL PRESENCE OF THE PAST; 

MEN THROW LIGHT UPON MAN. 

I. 

LOED CLANCHAELIE. 

I. 

In those times there was an old tra- 
dition. 

The tradition of Lord Linna0ns Olan- 
charlie. 

Baron Linnaeus Clancharlie, a contem- 
porary of Cromwell, was one' of the 
few English peers, let us say at the out- 
set, w'ho had accepted the republic. 
This acquiescence might ha^^e been rea- 
sonable, and could be explained if ne- 
cessary, since the republic had tri- 
umphed for an instant. It was per- 
fectly simple that Lord Clancharlie 
should have been on the side of the 
republic, so long as the republic had 
the upper hand. But Lord Clancharlie 
had persisted, after the winding up of 
the revolution and the fall of the Par- 
liamentary government. It would have 
been easy for his lordship to reenter 
the reconstructed upper house; peni- 
itents are always* well received by re- 
stored monarchs, and Charles II. was 
a kind prince to those who came back 
to him ; but Lord Clancharlie had not 
understood the moral of events. While 


the nation was welcoming its king with 
cheers, as he regained possession of 
England ; while the verdict in his favor 
was unanimous ; while the people were 
lavishing their salutes upon the mon- 
archy ; while the dynasty was raising 
its head again in the midst of a glorious 
and triumphal palinode; at the mo- 
ment when the past was becoming the 
future, and the future the past, this no- 
bleman had remained contumacious. 
He hVid averted his head from all this 
festivity ; he had gone- into voluntary 
exile ; he had preferred being an out- 
law, when he might have been a peer ; 
and thus his years had rolled on; he 
had grown old in his fidelity to the 
dead republic. 'And, therefore, he was 
covered with the ridicule which nat- 
urally attaches itself to such childish- 
ness. 

He had retired to Switzerland. He 
lived in a sort of palatial ruin on the 
borders of the Lake of Geneva. He 
had chosen for himself this dwelling in 
the most rugged recess of the lake, be- 
tween ChiUon, the dungeon of Bonni- 
vard, and Vevay, the tomb of Ludlow. 
He was enveloped by the stern Alps, 
teeming with twilight and wind and 
cloud ; there he lived, lost in the great 
shadows which mountains cast. Sel- 
dom did a traveller meet him. The 
man was not only out of his country, 
he was almost out of his age. At that 
• ^ 


l.ofC. 


100 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


time no resistance to circumstances was 
justifiable for those who knew and 
kept up with what was going, on. Eng- 
land was happy; a restoration is a 
reconciliation of man and wife ; king 
and people had ceased to live apart. 
Nothing could be more graceful and 
promising ; Great Britain was radiant ; 
it is much to have a king, but they had 
a charming king to boot ; Charles II. 
was amiable, was a statesman and a 
man of the world, and great after the 
example of Louis XIV. ; he was a gen- 
tleman and a nobleman; Charles II. 
was admired by his subjects; he had 
made the Hanoverian war, nobody but 
himself knew why ; he had sold Dun- 
kirk to France, a great political meas- 
ure. The democratic peers, of whom 
Chamberlayne says, “ The accursed re- 
public infected many of the nobility 
with its foul breath,” had been sensible 
enough to yield to reason, conform to 
their epoch, and reassume their seats in 
the upper house. All they had to do 
for this was to take the oath of alle- 
giance. "When one reflected on all 
these realities, on this beautiful reign, 
this excellent king, these august princes 
restored by divine mercy to the love 
of their people ; when one remembered 
that personages of consequence, like 
Monk, and afterward Jefi’reys, had ral- 
lied round the throne ; that they had 
been justly rewarded for their loyalty 
and zeal by the most magnificent dig- 
nities and the most lucrative offices; 
that Lord Clancharlie could not be ig- 
norant of the fact, that it depended on- 
ly on himself to bo seated gloriously 
alongside them in all honor ; that Eng- 
land, thanks to her king, had again 
reached the summit of prosperity ; that 
London was all banquets and pageants ; 
that everybody was rich and enthu- 
siastic ; that the court was gallant, gay, 
and proud — then if, by chance, afar 
from these splendors, in an indefinite, 
gloomy semi-daylight that resembled the 


nightfall, one saw this old man dressed 
in the same garb as the common people, 
pale, absent, bent with years, probably 
on the brink of the grave, standing 
near the lake, scarcely heeding tempest 
or winter, walking as if at random, his 
eyes fixed, his gray hairs tossed by the 
shadowy blasts, silent, solitary, pensive, 
it would have been hard not to smile. 

A profiled sketch of a madman, as it 
were. 

Thinking of Lord Clancharlie, what 
he might have been and what he was, 
to smile was charitable. Some laughed 
out loud. Others were indignant. 

It is clear that serious men might 
have been disgusted with such insolence 
in holding himself aloof. 

One extenuating circumstance there 
was : Lord Clancharlie had never been 
a man of capacity. Every one was agreed 
on that point. 

II. 

It is disagreeable to see people make 
a business of obstinacy. Such imita- 
tions of Eegulus are unpopular, and 
provoke irony in public opinion. 

These headstrong persons are living 
reproaches ; one has a right to laugh at 
them. 

And then, after all, is this stubborn-' 
ness, this ruggedness, a virtue ? Is there 
not much ostentation in this excessive 
show of self-denial and honor? It is 
more display than any thing else. "Why 
these exaggerations of solitude and 
exile ? To carry nothing too far is the 
wise man’s maxim. Make opposition — 
well and good ; find fault, if you will — 
but decorously, and without ceasing to 
cry, “ God save the king ! ” True virtue 
consists in being reasonable. That which 
falls ought to fall ; that which succeeds, 
to succeed. Providence has its reasons, 
and crowns the deserving. Do you 
pretend to know more about these 
things than Providence i VWhen facts 
have spoken, when one government has 


LOED CLANCHAELIE. 


101 


/ replaced anotlier, when success has 
eliminated the true and the false, on 
^ one hand ruin, on the other triumph, 
no more doubt is possible. The honest 
man attaches himself to the winning 
side ; and, although this benefits his for- 
tune and family, without letting himself 
be influenced by any such consideration, 
•^nd thinking only of the public weal, 
he gives his aid to the conqueror. 

What would become of the state, if 
no one consented to hold office? Is 
every thing to stop ? It is the part of a 
good citizen to keep his place. Learn 
to sacrifice your secret preferences. 
Offices require to be filled. Some one 
must devote himself. To be faithful to 
your public functions, is one sort of fidel- 
ity. Abandoned by its functionaries, 
the state would be paralyzed. It is 
childish to banish yourself. Do you 
mean it for an example ? What vanity ! 
For a defiance ? What impudence ! What 
great man do you suppose yourself to 
be ? Know that we are as good as you. 
We don’t desert our posts, not we ! If 
w'e chose, we too could be inaccessible 
and untamable — that we could; and 
we could do worse things than you. 
But we prefer to be sensible people. 
Because I am Trimalcion, you don’t 
think me capable of being Cato ! 

Nonsense ! 

III. 

Nevee was situation more clear and 
decided, than that of aflTairs in 1660. 
Never had the course to pursue been 
more clearly marked out to a man of 
sense^- 

/ England was free from Cromwell, 
/under the republic, many irregular 
' actions had been committed. British 
supremacy had been created ; the Eng- 
lish, with the help of the Thirty Years’ 
War, had subdued Germany; with the 
help of the Fronde, humbled France; 
with the help of the Duke of Braganza, 
curtailed Spain. Cromwell had tamed 


Mazarin; the Protector of England 
signed his name to a treaty above that 
of the French king. He had fined the 
United Provinces eight millions, dis- 
turbed Algiers and Tunis, conquered 
Jamaica, humiliated Lisbon, raised up 
a French faction in Barcelona and Ma- 
saniello in Naples ; he had moored Por- 
tugal to England, and made a clean 
sweep of the Barbary pirates, from Gib- 
raltar to Candia. The dominion of the 
seas had been founded under the double 
form of victory and trade. On the 
10th of August, 1653, the man who 
had won thirty-three fights, the old 
admiral who called himself grandfather 
of sailors^ the Martin Happestz Tromp, 
who had beaten the Spanish fleet, had 
been destroyed by the English fleet; 
the Atlantic had been wrested from the 
Spanish navy, the Pacific from the 
Dutch navy, the Mediterranean from 
the Venetian, and, by the act of navi- 
gation, the sea-coast of the world had 
been occupied. By means of the ocean, 
the ^arth was held in subjection; the 
Dutch flag humbly saluted the British 
at sea ; France, in the person of her 
ambassador Mancini, did reverence to 
Oliver Cromwell ; this Cromwell played 
with Calais and Dunkirk as with two 
shuttlecocks ; he had made the conti- 
nent tremble, dictated peace, declared 
war, planted the English standard on 
every pinnacle ; the Protector’s one 
regiment of Ironsides outweighed an 
army in the balance of Europe’s fears. 
Cromwell used to say. It is my icill 
that the English republic shall be re- 
spected as the Roman republic was. 
There remained no longer any thing 
sacred ; speech was free, the press was 
free ; men said in the open street what 
they chose, they printed without con- 
trol or censorship what they wished ; 
the balance of power had been dis- 
turbed ; all the monarchical institutions 
of Europe, whereof the Stuarts were 
part, had been turned upside down. 


102 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Finally, England had escaped from this 
odious government and received her 
pardon. 

The indulgent Charles II. had pro- 
mulgated the Declaration of Breda. He 
had granted to England oblivion of 
that epoch, when the son of a Hunting- 
don brewer placed his foot on the head 
.of Louis XIV. England uttered her 
mea culpd^ and breathed again. The 
expansion of hearts, as we have just 
said, was complete, the regicides’ gib- 
bets adding to the universal joy. A 
‘ restoration is an affair of smiles ; still, 
a trifle of gallows is not unbecoming, 
and the public conscience must be sat- 
isfied. The spirit of insubordination 
was scattered ; loyalty was reestablish- 
ing itself. Henc efort h the only ambi- 
tion was to be"^ a good subject. Men 
had recovered from their political fol- 
lies, they scoffed at the revolution, they 
ridiculed the republic, and the queer 
times when people had always big 
words in their mouth. Eighty Liberty^ 
Progress; how they laughed at these 
emphatic terms ! It was an admirable 
return of good sense; England had 
been dreaming. What happiness to be 
fre.e from, these delusions! Was there 
any thing more crazy ? Where should 
we^e, if every vagabond ha^i his-rights ? 
Imagine everybody governing! Can 
you fancy the city directed by the cit- 
izens? The citizens are a team, and 
the team isn’t the coachman. Putting 
a matter to the vote is throwing it to 
the winds. Would you make states 
float about like clouds ? Disorder does 
not construct order. If Chaos is the 
architect, the building will be Babel. 
And then what a tyranny this pre- 
tended liberty is! I want to amuse 
myself, I do, and not to govern. Voting 
is a bore ; I prefer to dance. What a 
godsend is a prince, w^ho takes charge of 
every thing ! Surely the king is gen- 
erous, to take this trouble for us. And 
then he was brought up to it ; he knows 


what it is ; it is his business. Peace, 
war, legislation, finance — is that the 
people’s business ? Doubtless the peo- 
ple must pay and work, but that ought 
to be enough for them. They have 
their part in politics ; they contribute 
the two forces of the state, the army 
and the purse. To be a taxpayer and 
a soldier, is not that enough? What^ 
more do the people want ? They are 
the right arm of the General and of the 
Treasurer — splendid position ! The 
king reigns for it ; surely this service 
must be recompensed. Taxes and civil 
lists are the wages which nations pay 
and princes earn. The people give 
their blood and their money in return 
for being led. Wish to direct itself? 
What a strange idea ! A guide is neces- 
sary for them. Being ignorant, they 
are blind. Has not the blind man a 
dog ? Only for the people it is a lion, 
the king, who consents to be their dog. 
What goodness! But why are the 
people ignorant ? Because it must be 
so. Ignorance is the guardian of vir- 
tue. Where there is no perspective, 
there is no ambition ; the ignorant man 
is enveloped in a beneficial darkness, 
which quenches his desires by quench- 
ing his sight. Hence comes innocence. 
He, who reads, thinks ; he, who thinks, 
reasons. It is our duty and also our 
happiness not to reason. These truths 
are incontestable. Society reposes on 
them. 

Thus were sound social doctrines re- 
established in England. Thus was the 
nation restored to virtue. At the same 
time there was a reaction in favor of 
fine literature. Shakespeare was de- 
spised and Dryden admired. Dryden 
is th6 greatest poet of England and of 
the age^ said Atterbury (who translated 
Achitophel into French). This was the 
time wflien M. Huet, Bishop of Avran- 
ches, wrote to Salmasius, who had done 
the author of Paradise Lost the honor 
of refuting and abusing him. How can 


LOED CLANCHAKLIE. 


103 


you occupy yourself with an object so 
insignificant as this Milton? Every- 
thing revived and reoccupied its place. 
Dry den up, Shakespeare down, Charles 
on the throne, Cromwell on the gibbet. 
England was recovering from the 
shameful extravagances of the past. 
It is a great blessing for nations to be 
brought back, by monarchy, to good 
order in the state and good taste in 
literatilre. ' v 

It is hard to believe that such benefits 
could be unappreciated. Was it not 
abominable to turn one’s back on 
Charles II., and repay with ingratitude 
his magnanimity in reascending the 
throne ? Lord Linn^us Clancharlie 
had caused this scandal to respectable 
persons. What madness to sulk at the 
happiness of his country ! 

In 1650, as is well known, the Parlia- 
ment had decreed this form, I promise 
to remain faithful to the republic^ 
without hing^ sorereign^ or master. 
Under pretext that he had taken this 
monstrous oath. Lord Clancharlie re- 
mained out of the kingdom, and, in 
face of the general happiness, thought 
he had a right to be sad. He had a 
melancholy esteem for that which no 
longer existed; a strange attachment 
to vanished objects. 

To excuse him was impossible ; the 
most benevolent gave him up. His 
friends had for a long time done him 
the honor to suppose that he had 
joined the republican ranks, only to 
see more nearly the weak points in the 
republic’s armor, and to strike it with 
more certainty, when the time came, to 
the benefit of the king’s holy cause. It 
is part of a loyalist’s duty to wait thus 
for the fit hour, when he can stab the 
enemy from behind. And this was 
hoped of Lord Clancharlie, so pre- 
disposed were people to judge him fa- 
vorably. But, in presence of his strange 
persistence in republicanism, it was 
soon necessary to renounce this good 


opinion. Evidently Lord Clancharlie 
was sincere, that is to say, an idiot. 

The explanations of the charitable 
hesitated between childish obstinacy 
and headstrong dotage. 

Stern judges went farther. They 
stigmatized this heretic. Weakness 
has its privileges, but it has bounds. 
One may be stupid ; one ought not to 
be rebellious. And then, after all, what 
was Lord Clancharlie but a deserter ? 
He had left his camp, the aristocracy, 
to go over to the hostile camp, the peo- 
ple. This faithful disciple was a traitor. 
To be sure, he was “traitor” to the 
strongest and faithful to the weakest 
side ; to be sure, the camp rejected by 
him was the victorious camp, and the 
camp adopted by him the vanquished ; 
to be 'sure, he lost every thing by this 
treason, his political privileges, and his 
domestic hearth, his peerage and his 
country ; his only gain was ridicule, his 
sole profit exile. But what did that 
prove ? That he was a blockhead. 

Grknted. 

Traitor and dupe at the same time — 
such there are. 

One may be a simpleton to one’s 
heart’s content, on condition of not 
setting a bad example. It is only re- 
quired of simpletons that they be hon- 
est; with which provision, they can 
set themselves up as the founders of 
monarchies. The paucity of this Clan- 
charlie’s wits was inconceivable. He 
had remained dazzled by the revolu- 
tionary phantasmagoria. He had al- 
lowed himself to be tricked by the re- 
public, at home and abroad. He af- 
fronted his country. His attitude was 
pure felony. To be absent, is to be 
reproachful. He seemed to hold him- 
self aloof from the public welfare, as 
from the plague. In his voluntary ban- 
ishment, there was, as it were, a refuge 
from the national satisfaction. He 
treated royalty as a contagion. He was 
the black flag over the vast monarchical 


104 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


enthusiasm denounced by him as a lazar- 
house. What! with order reestablished, 
the nation raised up again, religion 
restored — throw a shade upon all this 
serenity! Take an^iss contented Eng- 
land ! Be the dark spot in the great blue 
sky! Kesemble a menace! Protest 
against the national will! Eefuse his 
“yes” to the universal assent! This 
would be odious, if it were not comical. 
The Olancharlies had not taken into 
account that one may go astray with 
Cromwell, but that one must come back 
with Monk. Look at Monk ! He com- 
mands the army of the republic. Charles 
II., informed of his probity, writes to 
him. Monk, who combines a virtuous 
tone with crafty doings, dissimulates at 
first ; then, all at once, at the head of 
his troops, breaks up the factious Par- 
liament and reestablishes the king. And 
Monk is created Duke of Albemarle, 
has the honor of having saved society, 
becomes very rich, confers undying 
lustre upon his epoch, and is made a 
Knight of the Garter, with the prospect 
before him of being buried at Westmin- 
ster. Such is the glory of a faithful 
Englishman. Lord Clancharlie had not 
been able to raise himself to the com- 
prehension of duty thus put in practice. 
He had within him the infatuation, and 
the immobility, of exile. He satisfied 
himself with hollow phrases. The man 
was stiffened in the joints by pride. 
The words “ conscience,” “ dignity,” 
etc., are words, after all. One must 
look to the substratum. 

This substratum Clancharlie had not 
seen. His was a short-sighted con- 
science ; anxious, before committing an 
action, to examine it so closely as to 
inhale its odor. Thence, absurd dis- 
gusts. With such refinements, there is 
no such thing as a statesman. Exces- 
sive conscientiousness degenerates into 
infirmity. IScrupulousness is one-armed 
before a sceptre to be seized, and a 
eunuch before a fortune to be espoused.’; 


Mistrust scruples. They lead a long 
way. Unreasonable fidelity has its de- 
scents, like a cellar stairway. One step, 
then another step, then still one more 
step, and you find yourself in the dark. 
The shrewd mount up again ; the sim- 
ple-minded remain. One should not 
too readily allow the conscience to en- 
tangle itself in the severe. From tran- 
sitions transition, you reach the deeply- 
tinted shades of poli^al bashfulness. 
Then you are lost. This is what hap- 
pened to Lord Clancharlie. 

Principles, in the end, become a bot- 
tomless pit. 

He was strolling with his hands be- 
hind his back, along the shores of the 
Lake of Geneva. A pretty step in ad- 
vance ! 

Sometimes, in London, they spoke of 
the absentee. He was, in public opin- 
ion, almost in the position of an accused 
person. There were pleadings for him, 
and against him. When the cause was 
heard, the benefit of stupidity was 
awarded him. 

Many of the former zealots of the 
ex-republic, had given in their adhe- 
sion to the Stuarts; for which they 
merit praise. Naturally, they calum- 
niated him a little. The obstinate are 
troublesome to the complaisant. Witty 
folks, well regarded and well placed at 
court, and annoyed at his disagreeable 
attitude, volunteered to say: “If he 
has not joined us, it is because he has 
not been sufiiciently well paid,” etc. 
“ He wanted the place of Chancellor, 
•that the king has conferred upon Lord 
Hyde,” etc. One of his “old friends” 
went so far as to whisper — “He told 
me so, himself.” At times, all lonely 
as was Linnaeus Clancharlie, some of 
this tattle reached him, now from exiles 
whom he encountered, now from old 
regicides, such as Andrew Broughton 
who was living at Lausanne. Clan- 
charlie. did but shrug his shoulders im- 
perceptibly— a sign of profound stu- 


LOED CLANCHAELIE. 


105 


piditj. Once, lie gave the finishing 
touch to this shrugging of the shoulders, 
by these few muttered words : 

— I pity those who believe it. 

IV. 

CuAELES II., good man, treated him 
with disdain. The happiness of Eng- 
land, under Charles II., was more than 
happiness; it was enchantment. A 
restoration is an old picture blackened 
with age, that is revarnished ; all that 
had passed away reappears. The good 
old manners made their reentry ; pretty 
women reigned and governed. Evelyn 
has noticed this fact ; you may read in 
his diary: “Lewdness, profanation, 
contempt of God. I have seen the 
king, on a Sunday evening, with his 
mistresses, Portsmouth, Cleveland, Maz- 
arin, and two or three others, all half- 
naked, in the gallery devoted to play.” 
A certain degree of ill-humor is seen to 
peer out of this sketch ; hut Evelyn was 
a Puritan grumbler, infected with re- 
publican reveries. He did not appre- 
ciate the profitable example that mon- 
archs give by these grand Babylonian 
revels, which, after all, are the support 
of luxury. He did not comprehend the 
utility of vices. Kule : do not extirpate 
vices, if you wish to have women charm- 
ing. Otherwise, you will he like the 
noodles who destroy caterpillars, while 
all the while doating on hutterfiies. 

Charles II., as we have just remarked, 
scarcely perceived the existence of a 
rebel named Clancharlie ; hut J ames II. 
was more attentive. Charles II. gov- 
erned indulgently — it was his mode; 
let us add, that he therefore governed 
none the worse. A seaman sometimes 
makes a loose knot in a rope intended 
to hold fast against the wind, leaving 
the wind to draw it tight. Such is the 
senselessness of tempests and of peoples. 

This loose knot, speedily converted 
into a tight one, was the government 
of Charles II. 


Under James II., stifling began — ^the 
needful stifling of what remained of the 
revolution. James H. was laudably 
ambitious of being an effective sovereign. 
The reign of Charles II. was, in his 
eyes, only the rough draft of restoration ; 
James II. desired a return to order 
more perfected still. He had, in 1660, 
regretted that the hanging of the regi- 
cides was limited to ten. He was a 
more real reconstructor of authority; 
he infused vigor into serious principles. 
He brought about the reign of that jus- 
tice which is the true one, which ranges 
itself above sentimental declamations, 
and which is, in the main, preoccupied 
with the interests of society. In these 
protective severities, one recognizes the 
father of the State. He confided the 
hand of justice to Jeffreys, and the 
sword to Kirke. Kirke multiplied ex- 
amples. This practical colonel had the 
same man, a republican, hung, and re- 
hung three times, in one day, asking 
him on each occasion: “Dost thou 
abjure the republic ? ” and the wretch, 
having invariably said “no,” was fin- 
ished off*. “I have hung him four 
times,” said Kirke, satisfied. Corporal 
punishments, recommenced, are a de- 
cided sign of strength in the executive. 
Lady Lyle — notwithstanding that she 
had sent her son on the campaign 
against Monmouth — had concealed in 
her house two rebels, and was put to 
death. Another rebel, having had the 
honesty to declare that an Anabaptist 
woman had sheltered him, was par- 
doned, and the woman was burnt alive. 
Kirke, on another day, gave a town to 
understand that he knew it to be re- 
publican, by hanging nineteen of its 
citizens. Eeprisals very legitimate as- 
suredly, when one reflects that, under 
Cromwell, the ears and noses of saints 
in stone were cut off in the churches. 
James II., who had known how to pick 
out Jeffreys and Kirke, was a prince 
imbued with true religion. He mor- 


106 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


tified himself by the ugliness of his mis- 
tresses; he listened to Father La Oo- 
lomhidre, a preacher who was almost as 
unctuous as Father Cheminais, but with 
more fire, and who had the glory of 
being, in the former half of his life, the 
counsellor of James II., and in tlm lat- 
ter the inspirer of Marie Alacoque. It 
was owing to this strong religious nour- 
ishment that, at a later period, James 
II. was enabled to bear exile worthily, 
and to offer, in his retreat at St. Ger- 
main, the spectacle of a monarch su- 
perior to adversity, touching calmly for 
the king’s evil, and holding converse 
with Jesuits. 

You understand how such a king was 
compelled, in a certain measure, to pre- 
occupy himself with such a rebel as 
Lord Linnaeus Clancharhe. Transmis- 
sible hereditary peerages involving the 
future to some extent, it was e\ddent 
that, if any precaution with regard to 
this lord Was to be taken, James II. 
would not hesitate. 

11 . 

LOED DAVID DIEEY-MOIR. 

I. 

Lord Linx-^eus Clanohaelie had not 
always been old and proscribed. He 
had had his phase of youth and passion. 
We know, from Harrison and Pride, 
that the young Cromwell had loved 
women and pleasure, which sometimes 
(another view of the feminine question) 
foreshadows sedition. Be on your guard 
against loose dressing. Male ^prcecinc- 
tum jutenem ca/nete. 

Like Cromwell, Lord Clancharlie had 
had his weaknesses and his irregulari- 
ties. He was known to have had a nat- 
ural child, a son. This son, brought 
into the world at the moment when 
the republic was coming to an end, was 
born in England as his father was set- 
ting out on his exile. This is why he 
had never seen the father whom he 


owned. This bastard of Lord Clan- 
charlie had grown up a page at the 
court of Charles II. He was called 
Lord David Dirry-Moir ; he was a lord 
by courtesy, his mother being a woman 
of rank. This mother, while Lord Clan- 
charlie was becoming an owl in Swit- 
zerland, made up her mind, being hand- 
some, to look less sour; and obtained 
pardon for her first wild lover, by means 
of a second, this latter incontestably a 
tamed and even a royalist one, for it 
was the king. She was to some extent 
the mistress of Charles II. ; so much 
so, that his majesty, charmed at having 
recaptured this pretty woman from the 
republic, gave the little Lord David, 
son of the conquered one, a commission 
as yeoman of the mouth. Lord David 
was, for some time, a yeoman of the 
mouth, one of the hundred and seventy 
wearers of the long sword; then he 
entered the band of pensioners, and was 
one of the forty who carry a gilded 
halbert. He had besides, being of this 
noble body, established by Henry YIII. 
for guarding his person, the privilege 
of placing the dishes upon the king’s 
table. Thus it was that, while his 
father was growing gray in exile. Lord 
David prospered under Charles II. 

After which, he prospered under 
James II. 

“ The king is dead, long live the 
king ! ” is the non deficit alter aureus. 

It was at this accession of the Duke 
of York, that he obtained permission to 
call himself Lord David Dirry-Moir, 
from a lordship that his lately-deceased 
mother had bequeathed him, in that 
vast Scottish forest wherein is found 
the bird krag, which, with its beak, 
hollows out its nest in the trunk of an 
oak. 

* II. 

James II. was a king, and pretended 
to be a general. He liked to surround 
himself with young officers. Willingly 


LOED DAVID DIEKY-MOIE. 


107 


did he exhibit himself to the public, on 
horseback, with helmet and cuirass, and 
vast overflowing wig, passing out from 
below the helmet above the cuirass ; a 
sort of equestrian statue of War at 
child’s play. Ho took a fancy to the 
graceful air of the young Lord David. 
He took it kindly of this royalist, the 
being a republican’s son ; a repudiated 
father does not stand in the way of a 
court-fortune that is starting. The 
king made Lord David a gentleman 
of the bedchamber, with a salary of a 
thousand pounds. 

This was fine promotion. A gentle- 
man of the bedchamber sleeps, every 
night, near the king, upon a bed pre- 
pared for him. There are twelve gen- 
tlemen. They relieve each other. 

Lord David, in this post, was at the 
head of the king’s granary ; and his duty 
it was to supply oats for the horses, hav- 
ing two hundred and sixty pounds for 
his wages. He had under him the 
king’s five coachmen, the king’s five 
postilions, the king’s five grooms, the 
king’s twelve footmen, and the four 
porters of. the king’s chair. He had 
the ordering of the six racehorses that 
the king keeps at Haymarket, and 
which cost his majesty six hundred 
pounds a year. He disposed of every 
thing in the king’s wardrobe, which 
furnishes state-dresses for the Knights 
of the Garter. The usher of the Black 
Rod, pertaining to the king, bowed to 
the ground before him. This usher, 
under James IL, was the Chevalier 
Duppa. Lord David received homage 
from Mr. Baker, who was Clerk of the 
Crown, and from Mr. Brown, who was 
Clerk of Parliament. The English 
court, in its magnificence, is a patron 
of hospitality. Lord David presided, 
as one of the twelve, at table and at 
receptions. His was the glory of stand- 
ing up behind the king, on days of oflfer- 
ing, when the king presents to the 
Church the besant of gold, lyzantium; 


on the collar-days, when the king 
wears the collar of his order ; and on 
communion-days, when no one but the 
king and the prince partakes of the 
communion. He it was, who, on Holy 
Thursday, introduced to his majesty 
the dozen paupers, to whom the king 
gives as many silver pennies as the 
years he has lived, and as many shil- 
lings as the years he has reigned. It 
was his function, when the king was 
ill, to call to his majesty’s aid the two 
grooms of the almonry, who are priests, 
and to prevent the approach of physi- 
cians without permission of the Coun- 
cil of State. Eurthermore, he was 
lieutenant-colonel of the Scotch regi- 
ment of the Royal Guard, which beats 
the march of Scotland. 

In this capacity he went through 
several campaigns, and with much ecla% 
for he was a valiant man of war. A 
brave nobleman was he ; well made, 
handsome, generous, and very imposing 
in air and manner. He was tall in per- 
son, as ^e was elevated by birth. 

There was a moment when he came 
near being nominated groom of the 
stole, which would have given him the 
privilege of putting on the king’s shirt ; 
but, for this office, one must be prince 
or peer. 

The creation of a peer is a great af- 
fair. It is to create a peerage ; and this 
causes jealousy. It is a favor; and a 
favor makes for the king one friend and 
a hundred enemies, without reckoning 
that the friend becomes ungrateful. 
James IL, from policy, created peerages 
rarely ; but he readily transferred them. 
A peerage transferred brings about no 
scandal. It is only a title continued. 
Their lordships are little troubled by 
it. 

The royal good-will did not shrink 
from introducing Lord David Dirry- 
Moir into the Upper Chamber, provided 
it was through the door of a substituted 
peerage. His majesty asked no better 


108 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


than to have an opportunity for making 
of David Dirry-Moir, the lord by cour- 
tesy, a lord by right. 

III. 

This opportunity offered itself. 

One day came the news that divers 
things had happened to the old ab- 
sentee, Lord Linnasns Clancharlie, of 
which the principal was that he had 
died. Death has this of good in it for 
people — it gives rise to a little talk con- 
cerning them. What was known, or 
what was thought to be known, of the 
later years of Lord Linnasus was told 
over. Conjectures probably, and fa- 
bles. To believe these stories, doubt- 
less very far-fetched, Lord Clancharlie, 
toward the close of his life, had ex- 
perienced such a republican revivifica- 
tion as to be induced to marry— so the 
tale went — with an exile’s strange stub- 
bornness, a daughter of one of the regi- 
cides, Ann Bradshaw. They had the 
name exactly ; and reported further, 
that she too was dead, but in bringing 
into the world a child, a boy, who, if 
all the details were exact, would find 
himself to be the legitimate and legal 
heir of Lord Clancharlie. These aver- 
ments, very vague as they were, were 
more like rumors than facts. That 
which took place in Switzerland was, 
for England of that period, as far re- 
mote as what takes place in China for 
the England of to-day. Lord Clan- 
charlie must have been fifty-nine at the 
time of his marriage, and sixty at the 
birth of his son, and must have died 
very soon afterward, leaving behind 
him this child, an orphan on the fa- 
ther’s and mother’s side. Possibilities, 
without doubt, but not probabilities. 
It was added that the child was “ beau- 
tiful as the day,” which one may read 
in any fairy tale. King James put an 
end to these reports, evidently without 
any foundation, by declaring, one fine 
morning. Lord David Dirry-Moir the 


sole and definitive heir of Lord Linnaeus 
Clancharlie, the natural father, in de- 
fault of legitimate issue and by the 
royal good pleasure, the absence of all 
other relations and descendants being 
established^ patents to which effect were 
registered in the chamber of peers. 
By these patents, the king appropriated 
to Lord David Dirry-Moir the titles, 
rights, and prerogatives of the said de- 
funct Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, on the 
sole condition that Lord David should 
marry, when she was marriageable, a 
girl, then quite an infant and only some 
months old, whom the king had created 
a duchess in her cradle — one did not 
well know why. Bead, if you please, 
that one did well know why. This lit- 
tle one was called the Duchess Josiane. 

Spanish names were then the fashion 
in England. One of Charles the Sec- 
ond’s bastards was called Carlos, Earl 
of Plymouth. It is probable that Jo- 
siane was the contraction of Josefa-y- 
Anna. Perhaps, however, there was 
Josiane, as there was Josias. One of 
Henry the Eighth’s gentlemen was 
named Josias of Passage. 

It was upon this little duchess that 
the king conferred the peerage of Chan- 
charlie. She was peeress, while await- 
ing a peer. The peer would be her hus- 
band. This peerage was founded upon 
a double castellany, the barony of Clan- 
charlie and the barony of Hunkerville ; 
besides which, the Lords Clancharlie, 
in recompense for an old deed of arms 
and by royal permission, were Mar- 
quises of Corleone, in Sicily. The peers 
of England cannot bear foreign titles. 
But there are exceptions : thus, Henry 
Arundel, Lord Arundel of "Wardour, no 
less than Lord Clifford, is a count of the 
Holy Empire, whereof Lord Cowper is 
a prince ; the Duke of Hamilton is, in 
Prance, Duke of Chatelherault ; Basil 
Peilding, Earl of Denbigh, is, in Ger- 
many, Count of Hapsburg, of Lauffen- 
burg, and of Pheinfelden. The Duke 


THE DUCHESS JOSIANE. 


109 


of Marlborough was Prince of Mindel- 
heim in Swabia, just as the Duke of 
Wellington was Prince of Waterloo in 
Belgium. The same Duke of Welling- 
ton was Spanish Duke of Oiudad-Ko- 
drigo, and Portuguese Count of Vi- 
meira. 

There were in England, and there 
still are, noble estates, and estates held 
by mean tenure. The estates of the 
Lords Clancharlie were all noble. The 
estates, country-seats, townships, baili- 
wicks, fiefs, rents, manorial rights, and 
domains, attached to the Clancharlie- 
Hunkerville peerages, belonged pro- 
visionally to Lady Josiane, and the 
king declared that Josiane once es- 
poused, Lord David Dirry-Moir should 
be Baron Clancharlie. 

Besides the Clancharlie inheritance. 
Lady Josiane had her personal fortune. 
She possessed many valuables, several 
of which came from the gifts of Ma- 
dame sans queue to the Duke of York. 
Madame sans queue is equivalent to say- 
ing simply madame. Thus they termed 
Henriette of England, Duchess of Or- 
leans, the first woman- in France, after 
the Queen. 

IV. 

After having prospered under Charles 
and James, Lord David prospered uuder 
William. His Jacobinism did not go to 
the length of following James II. into 
exile. Ketaining all the while his at- 
tachment to his legitimate sovereign, he 
had the good sense to serve the usurper. 
He was, moreover, though with some 
disregard of discipline, an excellent offi- 
cer ; he passed from the army into the 
navy, and distinguished himself in the 
White squadron. He became therein 
what was called then “ a captain of a 
light frigate.” The upshot was the 
making him a finished gentleman, car- 
rying to an extreme point the elegances 
of vice, something of a poet as everyone 
was, a good servant of the state, a good 


prince’s lackey, assiduous at ffites, galas, 
levies, ceremonies, and battles, close- 
fisted as a man must be, very haughty, 
near-sighted or far-sighted, according to 
the object to be looked at, willing to be 
honest, obsequious, or arrogant on oc- 
casion, frank and sincere by impulse, 
but with privilege to put on his mask 
again; narrow observer of the royal 
humor good or bad, before a sword’s 
point quite careless, always ready to 
risk his life with heroism and unconcern 
at a sign from his majesty, capable of 
any wanton insult, but of no impolite- 
ness ; a man of courtesy and etiquette, 
proud of bowing the knee on great 
monarchical occasions, of brilliant valor, 
externally a courtier, internally a knight, 
quite a young man at forty-five. 

Lord David sang French songs, a gay 
accomplishment that had delighted 
Charles II. 

He loved eloquence and fine language. 
He greatly admired those celebrated 
parades of charlatanism that are called 
the Ordisons Fun^bres of Bossuet. 

From his mother’s side, he had almost 
the wherewithal to live, a revenue of 
about ten thousand pounds sterling, that 
is to say two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand francs. He got through it, running 
into debt. In magnificence, extrava- 
gance, and novelties, he was without 
rival. So soon as any one imitated 
him, he changed his style. On horse- 
back, he wore easy-fitting boots of calf- 
skin, turned over, with spurs. He had 
hats that no one else had, unheard-of 
lace, and cravats that were specially his 
own. 

III. 

THE DTJCHESS JOSIANE. 

I. 

About 1705, although Lady Josiane 
was twenty-three years of age, and Lord 
David forty-four, the marriage had not 
yet taken place, and this for the best 
reasons in the world. Did they hate 


110 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


eacli other? far from it. But that 
which cannot escape you does not ex- 
cite impatience. Josiane wished to re- 
main free; David wished to remain 
young. Not to get hound by the chain 
until the latest possible moment, this 
seemed to him a prolongation of his 
youth ; young men, determined not to 
grow old, abounded in those gallant 
days ; they grew gray as fops ; the wig 
was an accomplice, and at a later pe- 
riod powder was an auxiliary. At fifty- 
five, Lord Charles Gerrard, Baron Ger- 
rard, of the Gerrards of Bromley, filled 
London with the fame of his successes. 
The pretty and youthful Duchess of 
Buckingham, Countess of Coventry, was 
madly in love with the sixty-seven years 
of the handsome Thomas Ballasyse, 
Viscount Falcomberg. One recalls the 
famous line of Corneille, the man of 
seventy, to a woman of twenty — 
Marquise, si mon visage. 

Women also had their autumnal tri- 
umphs; witness Ninon and Marion. 
Such were their models. 

Josiane and David displayed in their 
coquetry a particular shade. They did 
not love each other ; they pleased each 
other. To walk by each other’s side 
was enough for them. Why should 
they hurry themselves to make an end 
of it? The love-stories of the time 
carried lovers and engaged people 
through this sort of probation, which 
was then much in vogue. Josiane, 
moreover, knowing herself base-born, 
felt herself a princess, and looked with 
some disdain upon these minor details. 
She had a fancy for Lord David. Lord 
David was fine-looking ; but this was 
over and above the bargain. She found 
him fashionable. 

To be fashionable is every thing. Cali- 
ban, fashionable and magnificent, quite 
distances Ariel, poor. Lord David was 
handsome, so much the better; the 
stumbling-block of being handsome is 
to be insipid; he was not. He gam- 


bled, he boxed, he ran in debt. Jo- 
siane made much of his horses, of 
his dogs, of his losses at play, of his 
mistresses. Lord David, for his part, 
submitted to the fascination of the 
Duchess Josiane, that haughty, unap- 
proachable, and high-spirited girl, with- 
out blemish and without scruple. He 
wrote sonnets to her, which Josiane 
read sometimes. In these sonnets, he 
aflirmed that to possess Josiane would 
be to mount up to the stars ; but this 
did not hinder him from always post- 
poning the ascension till next year. He 
danced attendance at the door of Jo- 
siane’s heart, and this suited them both. 
At court, all admired the exceeding 
good taste of this putting off. Lady 
Josiane said, “It is provoking that I 
should be compelled to marry Lord 
David; I, who ask for nothing better 
than to' be in love with him ! ” 

Josiane was flesh. Nothing could be 
more magnificent. She was very tall, 
too tall. Her hair was of that shade 
which one may call a reddish blond. 
She was plump, fresh, robust, bloom- 
ing, with inordinate audacity and wit. 
She had eyes that were only too easily 
understood. Lover she had none, and 
of purity little more. She walled her- 
self round in her pride. Men, pshaw ! 
a god, at the least, only was worthy of 
her, or a monster. If virtue consists in 
ruggedness, Josiane was all possible vir- 
tue, without the least innocence. She 
had had no adventures, through disdain 
of them ; but one would not have of 
fended her by supposing her to have 
had them, provided they should have 
been strange and suitable to a person- 
age like herself. She cared little for 
reputation, and very much for notoriety. 
To seem facile and to be unattainable, 
here was the crowning excellence. Jo- 
siane felt herself majestic and material. 
Hers was a cumbersome beauty. She 
invaded, rather than charmed. She 
trampled upon hearts. She was earthly. 


THE DUCHESS JOSIANE. 


Ill 


One wonld/have astonished her as much 
by showing her a soul in her bosom, as 
by showing her wings upon her back. 
She discoursed upon Locke. She had 
great polish of manners. She was sus- 
pected of knowing Arabic. 

^^To be flesh and to be woman, are two 

Lthings. ‘Where woman is vulnerable — 
on the side of pity, for example, which 
so easily becomes love — Josiane was 
not vulnerable. Not that she was in- 
sensible. The old comparison of flesh 
with marble is absolutely false. The 
beauty of flesh is in being not marble ; 
it is to palpitate, to tremble, to blush, 
to bleed ; it is to have firmness without 
hardness; it is to be white without 
being cold ; it is to have its starts and 
its weaknesses ; it is to be life ; and mar- 
ble is death. Flesh of a certain degree 
. of beauty has almost the right of naked- 
ness ; it covers itself with dazzling lus- 
tre as with a veil ; he who might have 
seen Josiane naked would only have 
seen this piece of modelling through a 
dilating brilliancy of light. She would 
willingly have shown herself — ^to a satyr 
or a eunuch. She had a mythological 
composure. To make of her nudity 
a corporal punishment, to elude the 
grasp of a Tantalus, would have amused 
her. The king made her a duchess, and 
Jupiter a Nereid. Double ii-radiation, 
of which the strange splendor of this 
creature was made up. In admiring 
her, one felt himself becoming a pagan 
or a lackey."! Her origin was bastardy 
and the ocetm. She seemed to rise out 
of the foam. The first jet of her des- 
tiny had threatened wreck, but in the 
middle portion it was regal. She had 
in her something of the wave, of chance, 
of nobility, and of the tempest. She 
was learned and weU-read. Never a 
passion had approached her, and she 
had gone to the bottom of them all. 
She had a distaste for realizations, and 
a liking for them at the same time. If 
she had stabbed herself, it would have 


been, like Lucretia, afterward. All 
manner of corruption, in a fanciful 
state, was in this virgin. She was a 
possible Astarte in a real Diana. She 
was, by the insolence of high birth, 
exasperating and unapproachable. Nev- 
ertheless she might have found it di- 
verting to get up for herself a fall. She 
dwelt, a glory in a nimbus, with a pas- 
sive willingness to come down, and per- 
haps with the curiosity to tumble out 
of it. She was a little heavy for her 
cloud. Sinning is pleasant. The free 
and easy manner of a prince gives the 
privilege of the trial, and a ducal per- 
son amuses herself where a citizen’s 
W’ife comes to ruin. Josiane was, on 
the whole, by birth, by beauty, by 
irony, and by brilliancy, almost a 
queen. She had had a moment of 
enthusiasm for Louis de Boufflers, who 
broke a horseshoe with his fingers. 
She regretted that Hercules was dead. 
She lived in an indefinable longing for 
an ideal, lascivious and supreme. 

As to morality, Josiane made one 
think of the line in the Epistle to the 
Pisos — 

Dcsinit in piscem. 

The lovely form of a woman ends in 
a hydra. 

It was a noble bust, a splendid bos- 
om, harmoniously heaved by a royal 
heart, a bright, animated look, a coun- 
tenance pure and haughty, and — who 
knows? — ^having under, the water, in 
the dim and confused transparency, 
a prolongation undulatory, abnormal, 
perhaps cruel and deformed. "Virtue 
superb, ending in vice, amid the depth 
of dreams. 

With all this a prude. 

It was the fashion. 

Eemember Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth is a type that has ruled in 
England for three centuries, the six- 
teenth, the seventeenth, and the eigh- 


112 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


teenth. Elizabeth is more than Eng- 
lish, she is Anglican. Hence, the pro- 
found respect of the Episcopal Church 
for that queen; respect resented by 
the Catholic Church, which mixed her 
up with a little of excommunication. 
In the mouth of Sixtus Fifth anathema- 
tizing Elizabeth, the malediction turns 
out a madrigal. XJn gran cerrello di 
principessa^ said he. Mary Stuart, less 
occupied with the Church question, and 
more occupied with the woman ques- 
tion, was little respectful to her sister 
Elizabeth, and wrote to her, the queen 
to the queen, and the coquette to the 
prude: “Your aversion to marriage 
proceeds from your not wishing to lose 
the liberty yourself of compelling peo- 
ple to make love to you.” Mary Stuart 
played with a fan, and Elizabeth with 
the axe. Unequal match. Again, the 
two were rivals in literature. Mary 
Stuart made French verses ; Elizabeth 
translated Horace. Elizabeth, ugly, 
decreed herself beautiful, loved qua- 
trains ahd acrostics, caused the keys of 
towns to be presented to her by Cupids, 
pinched ^her lips like the Italians, and 
rolled her eyes like the Spaniards, 
had in her wardrobe three thousand 
gowns and toilettes, of which some 
were costumes of Minerva and Am- 
phitrite, esteemed the Irish for the 
breadth of their shoulders, covered her 
farthingale with tinsel and spangles, 
doted on roses, swore, blasphemed, 
stamped with her feet in anger, struck 
with her fist her maids of honor, sent 
Dudley to the devil, beat Chancellor 
Burleigh, who whimpered, the old 
fool, spit upon Mathew, throttled Hat- 
ton, boxed Essex on the ears, showed 
her thigh to Bassompierre, was a vir- 
gin. ' 

"What she did for Bassompierre the 
Queen of Sheba had done for Solo- 
mon.* Wherefore it was correct. 


Holy Scripture having established the 
precedent. That which is Biblical may 
be Anglican. Biblical precedent goes 
so far even as to create a child who 
calls himself Ebnehaquem or Melile- 
chet, that is to say, le Fils du Sage. 

Why not these manners ? Barefaced 
wickedness is better than hypocrisy 

To-day England, who has a Loyola 
called Wesley, averts her eyes a little 
from the past. She is annoyed by it, 
but proud of it. 

During the reign of these manners, 
the taste for deformity prevailed, espe- 
cially with the women, and, singularly 
enough, with the pretty women. What 
was the use of being pretty, if one 
could not keep a little monster ? What 
was the use of being queen, if one might 
not be called pet-names by an obese Chi- 
nese ? Mary Stuart had had her “ weak- 
ness ” for a Rizzio. Maria Theresa, of 
Spain, had had “a little familiarity” 
with a negro. Whence the Black Ab- 
bess. In the alcoves of the august cen- 
tury the hunch was not much out of 
place ; witness Marshal Luxembourg. 

And before Luxembourg, Cond6, 
“that little man who was so pretty.” 

Pretty women themselves might, 
without inconvenience, be deformed. 
This was allowed. Anne Boleyn had 
one breast larger than the other, six 
fingers on one hand, and a tusk. La 
Yalliere 'was bandy-legged. This did 
not hinder Henry YIII. from being a 
fool, or Louis XIY. from becoming de- 
mented. 

In morals, there wqre the same devi- 
ations. Nearly every woman of high 
rank was a case of monstrous organiza- 
tion. Agnes contained Melusina. One 
might be a woman by day, and a vam- 
pire by night. They went to the place 
of execution, to kiss the heads just cut 
off on the iron stake. Margaret of Ya- 
lois, a grandmother of prudes, wore at 
her girdle, under padlock, in tin boxes, 
sewed to the body of her petticoat, aF 


* Regina Saba coram rege crura denudavit. 
— ScMckardus in Prooemis Tarich Jcreici, F. 65. 


THE DUCHESS JOSIANE. 


113 


the hearts of her dead lovers. Ilemy 
IV. was concealed under this farthin- 
gale. 

In the eighteenth century, the Duch- 
ess of Berry, daughter of the Eegent, 
revived in one obscene and royal type 
all these creatures. 

Besides, the fair dames knew Latin. 
*It Avas, during the sixteenth century, a 
feminine accomplishment. Jane Grey 
pushed this refinement even to the 
knowledge of Hebrew. 

The Duchess Josiane latinized. More 
than this, another pretty custom, she 
was a Catholic. In secret, let us say, 
and more after the manner of her uncle 
Charles II. than of her father James II. 
James had sacrificed his kingdom to his 
Catholicism, and Josiane had no desire 
of risking her peerage. For this reason. 
Catholic as she was in her own bosom 
and among clever men and sharp wo- 
men, she was externally Protestant for 
the crowd. 

> This mode of interpreting religion is 
pleasant; one enjoys all the privileges 
that belong to the Established Episco- 
pal Church, and, later, one dies, like 
Grotius, in the odor of Catholicism, 
and one has the glory of having a mass 
said oA-er him by Pere Petau. 

Plump and in good health as Josiane 
was, let us insist here, she was an ac- 
complished romanticist. 

At times, her sleepy and voluptuous 
way of drawling her words resembled 
the stretching out of the paws of a ti- 
gress prowling in the jungle. 

The advantage of being a prude is 
that it disturbs thb classification of the 
human race. One no longer does it 
the honor to belong to it. 

Above all, to put the human race at 
a distance, this is what is of moment. 

Mhen one has not Cljunpus, one 
takes the Hotel Kambouillet. 

Juno resolves herself into Araminta. 
An assumption of divinity, that is not 
recognized, makes a woman pointed 


at. In default of thunderbolts, one has 
impertinence. The temple shrivels into 
a boudoir. Hot being able to be a god- 
dess, onejs an idol. 

There is, moreover, in the male 
romanticist a certain pedantry that 
pleases women. 

The coquette and the pedant are 
neighbors. The union of the tAVO is 
seen in the coxcomb. 

The subtle is derived from the sen- 
sual. Gluttony affects delicacy; a grim- 
ace of aversion is becoming to covet- 
ousness. 

And the weak side of woman is 
conscious of being guarded by all that 
casuistry of gallantry, which takes the 
place of scruples, with prudes. It is a 
line of circumvallation with a moat. 
Every prude has an air of reluctance. 
This protects her. 

She will consent, but meanwhile she 
treats it lightly. 

Josiane had an unquiet conscience. 
She felt such a proclivity to immodesty, 
that sle was a scold. The fierce re- 
coil backward of our vices carries us 
into opposite vices. The excessive 
effort to be modest makes the prude. 
To be too much on the defensHe, this 
betrays a secret desire to be attacked. 
The blustering are not severe. 

She intrenched herself Avithin the 
arrogant exclusiveness of her rank and 
birth, all the while meditating, per- 
haps, as we have said, some abrupt 
sallying forth. 

It Avas at the dawn of the eighteenth 
century. England exhibited in the 
rough draft what France Avas under the 
Kegency. Walpole and Dubois were 
in power, Marlborough Avas fighting 
against his ex-king James II., to Avhom 
he had sold his sister, Churchill. Bol- 
ingbroke then shone, and Eichelieu was 
beginning to sparkle. Gallantry found 
its convenience in a certain commin- 
gling of castes; social equality estab- 
lished itself by vice. It came later to 


114 


“BY THE KING’S COMMAND.” 


establish itself by ideas. The breaking 
down of rank, an aristocratic prelude, 
began what the Eevolution came to 
finish. They were not far from J61y- 
otte, openly seated in broad day on the 
bed of the Marquis d’Epinay. It is 
true, for the manners of the age echo 
it, that the sixteenth century had seen 
the nightcap of Smeton over the pil- 
low of Anne Boleyn. 

If woman signifies indiscretion, as I 
know not what council has affirmed, 
never was woman more entirely wo- 
man than at this time. bTever, cover- 
ing her frailty with her charms, and 
her weakness with her omnipotence, 
had she more imperiously given her- 
self absolution. To make the forbid- 
den fruit the permitted fruit, this was 
Eve’s fall ; but to make the permitted 
fruit the forbidden fruit, this was her 
triumph. She finished with this. In 
the eighteenth century woman drew 
the bolt upon her husband. She shut 
herself up in Eden with Satan. Adam 
was outside. 

All Josiane’s instincts inclined her 
rather to yield herself in gdllantry, than 
in the legal way. To yield ourselves 
up to gallantry gives a literary tone, 
recalls Menalcas and Amaryllis, and is 
almost a learned act. 

Mademoiselle de ScudSry, apart from 
the afiinity that ugliness has for ugli- 
ness, had no other motive for yielding 
to Pelisson. 

The young girl a sovereign, and the 
wife a subject, these are the old cus- 
toms of England. Josiane postponed, 
as long as she could, the hour of this 
subjection. Let it come at last to mar- 
riage with Lord David, since the royal 
good pleasure demanded it, it was a 
necessity doubtless, but what a misfor- 
tune! Jqsiane accepted and refused 
Lord Da\’fi'd. There was between them 
a tacit understanding, not to conclude 
and not to break off. They kept out 
of each other’s way. This fashion of 


carrying on a love-matter, with one 
step forward and two steps backward, 
is expressed in the dances of the time, 
the minuet and the gavotte. To be 
married folks, this did not improve the 
expression of the countenance, this 
faded the ribbons one wore, this made 
one grow old. The wedding, mourn- 
ful eclipse of brilliancy ! The handing 
over of a wife by a notary, what stu- 
pidity I The brutality of marriage cre- 
ates definite situations, suppresses the 
will, murders the choice, has a syntax 
like a grammar, substitutes orthogra- 
phy for inspiration, makes love a mere 
formula, dispels all the mysteries of 
life, dissij)ates the illusions of feminine 
attire, confers rights belittling to him 
who exercises them as to her who sub- 
mits, deranges, by throwing the scale 
all on one side, the charming equilib- 
rium of the robust sex and the all-pre- 
vailing sex, of force and beauty, and 
makes here a master and there a ser- 
vant, whilst, but for marriage, there had 
been a slave and a queen.' To make 
the bed so prosaic as to Ibe decent, 
could there be conceived any thing 
more gross ? That there should be no 
longer the least harm in loving each 
other, is not this sufficiently stupid ? t 

Lord David matured. Forty years— 
it is the striking of an hour. He had 
not heard it, and, in fact, he had al- 
ways the air of thirty. He found it 
more amusing to desire Josiane, than 
to possess her. He possessed her in 
others ; he had women. Josiane, for 
her part, had dreams. 

Her dreams were the worse. 

The Duchess Josiane had this pecu- 
liarity, less rare than would be sup- 
posed, that one of her eyes was blue 
and the other black. Her looks were 
made up of love and hate, of gayety 
and dejection. Day and night were 
mingled in her glance. 

Her ambition was this, to show her- 
self capable of the impossible. 


MAGISTER ELEGANTIAEUM. 


115 


One day she had said to Swift — 

— Yon imagine, you fellows, that 
you know what scorn is. 

“You fellows” meant the human 
race. 

She was a papist skin-deep. Her 
Catholicism did not exceed the quan- 
tity essential to fashion. It would 
have been Puseyism to-day. She wore 
the heaviest robes of velvet, or satin, 
or watered silk, some of fifteen or six- 
teen ells’ breadth, and fastenings of 
^ gold and silver, and around her girdle 
in profusion knots of pearls alternated 
with knots of brilliants. She was ex- 
travagant in lace. She wore sometimes 
a bachelor’s braided -waistcoat. She 
rode on a man’s saddle, notwithstand- 
ing the invention of side-saddles intro- 
duced into England in the fourteenth 
century by Anne, -wife of Richard II. 
She -washed her face, her arms, her 
shoulders, and her neck, in sugar-candy 
beaten up with the white of an egg, af- 
ter the Castilian style. She had, after 
any witty saying uttered in her pres- 
ence, .an appreciative laugh of rare 
grace. Beyond this, no harm in her. 
Rather good, than otherwise. 

IV 

MAGISTEE ELEGANTIAEUM. 

JosiANE had a tedious time of it, this 
need scarcely be said. 

Lord David Dirry-Moir held a high 
position in the gay life of London. 
Nobility and gentry paid him rever- 
• once. 

Let us record one triumph of Lord 
David — he dared to wear his own hair. 

The reaction against the wig had be- 
gun. Just as in 1824, Eugene Deveria 
was the first who ventured to let his 
beard grow, in 1702 Price Devereux 
was the first who ventured, under the 
pretext of the frizzle of the literati, to 
risk in public his own hair. To risk his 


hair was almost to risk his head. The 
indignation was universal, although 
Price Devereux was Viscount Hereford, 
Peer of England. He was insulted; 
and indeed the thing was worth the 
penalty. At the very height of the 
outcry. Lord David appeared, all at 
once, also with his own hair and with- 
out a wig. Such things portended an 
end of society. Lord David was de- 
rided even more than Viscount Here- 
ford. He stuck to it. Price Devereux 
had been the first. Lord David Dirry- 
Moir was the second. It is sometimes 
more embarrassing to be the second, 
than the first. It demands less genius, 
but more courage. The first, intoxi- 
cated with the novelty, may be igno- 
rant of the danger ; the second sees the 
abyss, and throws himself into it. Lord 
David Dirry-Moir threw himself into 
this abyss of not wearing the wig. At 
a later day they imitated him; they 
had, after these two revolutionists, the 
audacity to dress the hair ; and powder 
came' as an extenuating circumstance. 

To establish, in passing, this impor- 
tant historical point, let us say that the 
rightful priority in the war upon the 
wigs belongs to a queen — Christine of 
Sweden, who wore men’s apparel, and 
showed herself in 1680 with her nat- 
ural chestnut hair, powdered and bris- 
tling up without aid of hair-dresser, and 
cut close to the head. She had like- 
wise “ some sprigs of beard,” says 
Misson. 

The Pope on his part, by his bull of 
March, 1794, had thrown a slur on the 
wig, in taking it from the heads of his 
bishops and priests, and in ordering 
the men of the church to let their hair 
grow. 

Lord David then did not w^ear a wig, 
and did wear calf-skin boo^ 

These mighty deeds poiiMd him out 
for public admiration. There was not 
a club of which he was not the leader, 
not a boxing-match in which he was 


116 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


not wanted as referee. The referee 
decides every thing. 

He had drawn up the code of rules 
of many of the clubs of high life ; he had 
laid the foundations of refined resorts, 
of which one, the Lady Guinea, still 
flourished in Pall Mall, in 1772. The 
Lady Guinea was a club thronged by 
all the younger members of the nobil- 
ity. They gambled there. The small- 
est stake was a rouleau of fifty guineas, 
and there was never less than twenty 
thousand guineas on the table. At the 
elbow of each player stood a little table 
for the cup of tea, and the ormolu bowl 
wherein was kept the rouleaux of 
guineas. The players wore leather 
cuflk, such as servants wear in sharpen- 
ing knives, to protect their laces, leather 
doublets to protect their ruffs, and on 
the head, to shelter the eyes, because 
of the glare of the lamps, and to keep 
their locks smooth, large straw hats 
covered with flowers. They were 
masked, that they might not betray 
their agitation, especially at the game 
of quinze. All wore their cloaks thrown 
backward over their shoulders, for luck. 

Lord David was a member of the 
Beefsteak Club, the Surly Club, the 
Split-Farthing Club, the Fantasticals 
Club, the Scratch-Penny Club, the 
Sealed Knot, a royalist Club, and to the 
Martinus Scriblerus, founded by Swift, 
in place of the Kota founded by Milton. 

Though a handsome man, he be- 
longed to the Ugly Club. This club 
was dedicated to deformity. They 
there incurred the obligation to fight, 
not for a pretty woman, but for an 
ugly man. The hall of the club was 
ornamented with portraits of hideous 
people. Thersites, Triboulet, Duns, 
Hudibras, Scarron; over the mantel 
was -^sop, J^etween two one-eyed men. 
Codes ancflfcmoens; Codes being one- 
eyed of the right eye, and Camoens of 
the left, each was sculptured on his 
blind side, and the two blind profiles I 


were set opposite each other. The day 
that the pretty Madame Yisart took 
the small-pox, the Ugly Club toasted 
her. This club yet flourished at the 
opening of the nineteenth century; it 
had sent a diploma of honorary mem- 
bership to Mirabeau. 

Since the restoration of Charles II., 
the revolutionary clubs had beeu 
abolished. They had pulled down, in 
a little street adjoining Moorfields, the 
tavern wherein were held the sittings 
of the Calf’s-Head Club, so called be- 
cause on the 30th of January, 1648, 
the day when the blood of Charles I. 
flowed upon the scaffold, they had 
drunk from a calf’s skull a- bumper of 
red wine to the health of Cromwell. 

To the republican had succeeded 
the monarchical clubs. They amused 
themselves decently therein. 

There was the She - Romps Club. 
They caught in the street a woman, a 
passer-by, of the middle class, as young 
and as good-looking as they could get ; 
they pushed her by force into the club, 
and there made her walk on her hands, 
her feet in the air, her face hidden by 
her drooping petticoats. If she took it 
in dudgeon, they lashed a little with 
the riding-whip that part which was 
not concealed. ’Twas her fault. The 
squires of this order of horse-breaking 
called themselves “ The Friskers.” 

There was the Sheet-Lightning Club, 
metaphorically the Merry - Dancers. 
Negroes and vt^hites danced here the 
picantes and the timtirimhas of Peru, 
notably the Mozamala, the doxy’s dance 
which has its crowning feature in the 
dancing-girl’s sitting down on a heap 
of meal, upon which, on rising, she 
leaves the imprint of the Callipyge. 
We may apply to this spectacle the 
verse of Lucretius — 

Tunc Venus in sylvis jungebat corpora anian- 

tium. 

There was the Hell-Fire Club, where 
they played at being impious. It was 


MAGISTER ELEGANTIAEUM. 


117 


a tournament of sacrilege. Ilell was 
here set up at auction to the most 
blasphemous. 

There 'was the Butting Club, so 
called because they gave butts to 
people. They picked out some porter, 
with an immense brisket and an idi- 
otic look. They offered him, and if 
necessary they forced him to take, a 
pot of porter for allowing them to give 
him four butts in the breast, and there- 
upon they laid their wagers. Once, a 
man, a heavy brute of a Welshman, 
named Gogangerdd, died at the third 
butt. This looked serious. There 
'was an inquest, and the jury brought 
in the verdict — “ died of expansion of 
the heart, caused by excessive drink- 
ing.” Gogangerdd had indeed drunk a 
pot of porter. 

There was the Fun Club. Fun is, 
like cant, like humor, an exceptional, 
untranslatable word. Fun is to farce 
Vv’hat allspice is to salt. To enter a 
dwelling, smash the costly mirrors, 
slash the family portraits, poison the 
dog, put the cat in the a'viary, this was 
called “ cutting out a piece of fun.” 
To spread a false report of bad news 
which should put people needlessly in 
mourning, this was fun. It was fun 
that had cut a square hole in the Hol- 
bein at Hampton Court. Fun would 
have been proud, if it had broken off 
the arms of the Venus of Milo. Un- 
der James II. a young lord, a million- 
naire, who had set fire at night to 
a straw-thatched cottage, filled Lon- 
don with laughter and was proclaimed 
King of Fun. The poor devils of the 
straw -thatched cottage escaped in their 
night-dresses. The members of the Fun 
Club, all of the highest aristocracy, 
Avandered about London at an hour 
Vvdien the citizens were asleep, took 
the shutters off their hinges, cut the 
pipes of the hydrants, caused the cis- 
terns to cave in, took down the signs, 
laid Avaste the flower-beds, extin- 


guished the street lamps, sawed asun- 
der the main props of houses, broke 
the squares of glass in the windows — 
especially in the quarters of the poor. 
It was the rich who thus treated the 
Avretched. That was why no com- 
plaint Avas possible. Besides, there 
was something comic in it. These 
manners have not yet wholly disap- 
peared. In different parts of England 
and of the English possessions, at Guern- 
sey for example, from time to time they 
lay waste your house a little at night, 
break down your fence, wrench off 
your door-knocker, etc. If the offend- 
ers were poor, they would be sent to 
jail; but they are estimable young 
gentlemen. 

The most distinguished of the clubs 
was presided over by an emperor, who 
carried a crescent on his forehead, 
and was called “the Great Mohock.” 
The Mohock surpassed the Fun. To do 
harm for harm’s sake, such was the 
programme. The Mohock Club had 
this ' noble aim : to be mischievous. 
For fulfilling this duty, all means were 
good. On becoming a Mohock, you were 
bound by oath to do mischief. To do 
mischief at all hazards — no matter 
when, no matter what, no matter how 
— Avas the obligation. Every member, 
of the Mohock Club was expected to 
have his special talent. One was a 
“dancing-master,” that is to say, he 
made clodpolls frisk about, by prick- 
ing their calves with his sword. Odiers 
were skilled in “sweating,” that is to 
say, the getting up a circle of six or 
eight gentlemen, rapier in hand, around 
some low scamp ; being surrounded on 
all sides, it was impossible that the 
scamp should not turn his back upon 
some one of the party ; the gentleman, 
upon whom he turned it, (^stised him 
for it by a pointed thru^ that made 
him Avheel about ; a fresh thrust in the 
back intimated to the fellow that he 
had some sprig of nobility behind him ; 


118 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


and thus, one after another, each prick- 
ing in his turn. When the man, girt in 
by this circle of swords, and all bloody, 
had sufficiently pirouetted and danced, 
they had him cudgelled by their lackeys, 
just to change the course of his ideas. 
Others “stirred up the lion,” that is to 
say, laughingly arrested a passer-by, 
crushed his nose for him with the blow 
of a fist, and plunged their two thumbs 
into his two eyes. If the two eyes were 
put out, they paid him for the loss. 

Such, at the beginning of the eigh- 
teenth century, were the pastimes of 
the opulent idlers of London. The 
idlers of Paris had others. Monsieur 
de Oharolais fired off his gun at a citi- 
zen on the threshold of his own door. 
In every age, youth has amused itself. 

Lord David Dirry-Moir carried into 
these divers institutions of pleasure his 
sumptuous and liberal turn of mind. 
Like any other of his set, he would 
gayly burn down a thatched wooden 
hut, and singe a little those who were 
within it ; but then he rebuilt their cot- 
tage for them in stone. It happened 
once, at the She-Eomps Club, that he 
made a couple of women dance upon 
their hands. One was a girl ; he gave 
her a dowry. The other was married ; 
he had her husband made a chaplain. 

Cock-fights were indebted to him for 
a commendable perfection. It was a 
marvel to see Lord^ David dressing a 
cock for the pit. Cocks seize hold of 
feathers, as men do of hair. Thus Lord 
David made his bird as bald as possible. 
With scissors he cut off all the feathers 
of the tail, and from head to shoulder 
all the feathers of the neck. — So much 
the less for the enemy’s beak, said he. 
Then he stretched out his cock’s wings, 
and trimmed to a point each separate 
feather, one after the other, thus gar- 
nishing hif^fings with pikes. — That’s 
for the enemy’s eyes, said he. In the 
next place, he scraped the claws with a 
penknife, sharpened the nails, set into 


the main spur a steel blade, sharp- 
pointed and cutting, spat over his head, 
spat over his neck, anointed him with 
saliva, as they used to rub the athletes 
with oil, and let him go, terribly got 
up, with the exclamation : — That’s how 
a cock is made into an eagle, and how 
a barn-yard fowl becomes a creature 
of the mountain ! 

Lord David attended boxing-matches, 
and was, in fact, their living ordinance. 
On great occasions, he it was who looked 
to the planting of the stakes and the 
stretching of the cords, and who deter- 
mined how many yards there should be 
in the square bit of fighting-ground. 
When he acted as second, he followed 
his man foot to foot, a bottle in one 
hand and a sponge in the other ; called 
to him, “ Strike fair ! ” suggested feints 
to him ; advised him when fighting ; 
wiped him when bleeding ; picked him 
up when knocked down ; took him on 
his knees ; put the neck of the bottle 
between his teeth ; and, from his own 
mouth, filled with water, blew a fine 
rain into his eyes and ears, which tends 
to reanimate the dying. When he was 
umpire, he looked well to the fairness 
of the blows; forbade any one, be he 
who he might, except the seconds, as- 
sisting the combatants; declared the 
champion beaten who did not place 
himself right opposite his adversary; 
watched that the interval between the 
rounds did not exceed half a minute ; 
hindered stumbling from unevenness 
of the ground; decided against him 
who butted with his head ; prevented 
a man, who had fallen down, being 
struck. All this science did not make 
a pedant of him, and in no degree 
diminished his hold upon the people 
around. 

It was not when he was the referee 
in a fight, that the sunburnt, pimpled, 
and shaggy backers of this side or that 
would venture — for the purpose of 
helping their failing man, or of upset- 


QUEEN 

ting tlie chances of a bet — to climb 
over tbe palisade, to enter witliin the 
enclosure, to break down the cords, 
to pull up tlie stakes, or to interfere 
violently with tbe figlit. Lord David 
belonged to tbe small number of um- 
pires, whom they did not dare to pom- 
mel. 

Nobody trained as be did. Tbe pu- 
gilist, whose trainer he consented to be, 
was sure to win. Lord David picked 
out a Hercules, massive as a rock, tall as 
a tower, and made of him bis own child. 
Tbe problem was to convert this human 
rock, from tbe defensive, into tbe often- 
sive condition. Therein be excelled. 
Once tbe Cyclops adopted, be never let 
him go. lie became a wet-nurse. He 
measured bis wine; be weighed bis 
meat; be counted bis hours of sleep. 
It was be who invented that admirable 
regime for a boxer, which has been re- 
vived by Moreley: in tbe morning, a 
raw egg and a glass of sherry ; at noon, 
a leg of mutton underdone, with tea ; 
at four o’clock, toasted bread and tea ; 
in tbe evening pale ale and toasted 
bread. After whiob be undressed tbe 
man, shampooed him, and put him to 
bed. In tbe street, he did not lose 
sight of bis man, keeping all dangers 
out of bis way, runaway horses, car- 
riage-wheels, drunken soldiers, pretty 
girls. He bad an eye upon his virtue. 
This maternal solicitude brought out 
continually some new gain in tbe pu- 
pil’s education. He taught him the 
blow with tbe fist that smashes tbe 
teeth, and the blow with the thumb 
that knocks out an eye. Nothing could 
be more touching. 

He prepared himself, in this fashion, 
for the political life, to which he must 
be summoned at a later period. It is 
no slight affair to become an accom- 
plished gentleman. 

Lord David Dirry-Hoir had a pas- 
sionate fondness for out-of-door exhibi- 
tions, mountebanks on show, the circus 


ANNE. 119 

with its rare beasts, the acrobats’ stage, 
scaramouch, jesters, farces in the open 
air, and all the wonders of fairs. The 
real lord is he who has a smack of the 
people’s man; and this is why Lord 
David frequented the taverns and the 
obscure court-yards of London and the 
Cinque Ports. So as to be able, with- 
out compromising his rank in tlie 
"White Squadron, to collar a top-man 
or ti caulker, he put on a sailor’s jacket 
when he went into these low haunts. 
For these transformations it was con- 
venient for him that he did not wear a 
peruke, for, even under Louis XIV., the 
people stuck to their hair as the lion to 
his mane. In this style, he was free. 
The common people, whom Lord David 
encountered in these gatherings and with 
whom he associated, held him in high 
esteem, and did not know that he was 
a lord. They called him Tom Jim-J ack. 
Under this name he was popular, and a 
great personage in this low debauchery. 
His descent to their standard was mas- 
terljl On occasion, he used his fiste. 
This side of his refined life was known 
to, and greatly appreciated by. Lady 
Josiane. 

V. 

QUEEX ANXE. 

I. 

Above this couple, there was Anne, 
the Queen of England. 

Hand in glove with any one was 
Queen Anne. She was gay, kindly, 
almost august. No one of her good 
qualities reached up to Victoria ; none 
of her imperfections descended to de- 
pravity. Her embonpoint was puffy ; 
her humor was easy ; her kindness was 
ill-timed. She was tenacious and yield- 
ing. As a wife, slie was uiffaithful and 
faithful, having favorites to whom she 
gave up her heart, and a consort for 
whom she reserved her couch. As a 


% 


120 ' 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Christian, she was a heretic and a bigot. 
She had one beauty, the full neck of a 
hTiobe. The rest of her person was 
nothing to boast of. She was awk- 
wardly coquettish, and honestly. Her 
skin was white and fine ; she showed 
much of it. From her came the fashion 
of a collar of large pearls fitted close to 
tlie neck. She had a narrow forehead, 
sensual lips, fleshy cheeks, a protrud- 
ing eye, short sight. Her short-sight- 
edness extended to her wits. Apart 
from an occasional outburst of joviality 
almost as oppressive as her anger, she 
lived in a sort of taciturn grumbling, 
and of silence in the dumps. Words 
escaped her, the meaning of Avhich was 
only to be guessed. She was a com- 
pound of good woman and mischievous 
devil. She liked surprises, which is thor- 
oughly womanish. Anne was a speci- 
men, hardly rough-hewn,of the universal 
Eve. To this rough draught had fallen 
the chance of a throne. She drank. Her 
husband v»^as a Dane, thorough-bred. 

Tory, she governed by the Whigs, 
femininely, insanely. She had fits of 
rage. She would break things. No 
person more maladroit in handling 
affairs of state. She let events slip 
through her fingers. All her policy 
was cracked. She excelled in bringing 
about great catastrophes from little 
causes. When moved by a freak of 
authority, she used the term “hitting 
with the poker.” 

She uttered, with an air of profound 
re very, such phrases as this : “ No peer 
can be covered before the king, except 
feourcy, Baron Kinsale, peer of Ireland.” 
She said: “It would be unjust not to 
have my husband Lord Admiral, as my 
father was.” And she made George of 
Denmark High- Admiral of England, 
and “of all her Majesty’s Plantations.” 
She was in a perpetual perspiration of 
peevishness. She did not express her 
thoughts; she exuded them. In this 
goose there was something of the 


sphinx. She had no aversion to fun, 
to the farce tlmt is biting and offensive. 
If she could have made Apollo hump- 
backed, it would have been her delight. 
But she would have left him a god. 
Her ideal of benignity was, not to 
drive any one to desperation, while 
wearying all the world. She had many 
a crabbed word, and for little . more 
would have sworn, like Elizabeth. 
From time to time she took from the 
man’s pocket attached to her petticoat 
a small round box in rejiouBse silver, on 
the lid of which was her portrait in 
profile between the two letters Q. A. 
(Queen Anne) ; opened it, and with the 
tip of her finger extracted from it a 
small quantity of pomatum, with which 
she reddened her lips. Then, having 
prepared her moutl], she laughed. She 
was excessively fond of the flat ginger- 
bread nuts from Zealand. She was 
proud of being fat. 

More a Puritan than any thing else, 
she would none the less willingly have 
addicted herself to plays. She had a 
fancy for an Academy of Music, copied 
from that of France. In 1700, a French- 
man named Forteroche desired to con- 
struct in Paris a Eoyal Circus, at a cost 
of four hundred thousand livres, to 
which scheme D’Argenson was op- 
posed. This Forteroche passed over 
into England, and proposed to Queen 
Anne, who was for a moment captivated 
by the idea, to build in London a the- 
atre fitted with machinery, that should 
be finer than tho French King’s, and 
have a fourth story underground. 
Like Lous XIV., she liked her carriage 
to go at a gallop. Teams of horses and 
relays sometimes made the journey 
from Windsor to London in less than an 
hour and a quarter. 

II. 

In the time of Anne, there could be no 
assemblage of people without permis- 
sion from two justices of the peace. A 


t 


QUEEN ANNE. 


121 


dozen persons gathering together, were 
it to eat oysters and drink porter, was 
a felony. 

Under this reign, nevertheless com- 
paratively a moderate one, the press- 
gang for the fleet operated with ex- 
treme violence : gloomy proof that the 
Englishman is more of a subject than 
of a citizen. For centuries the King of 
England made use therein of a despotic 
procedure, that gave the lie to all the 
old charters of freedom, and in her 
exemption from which France in par- 
ticular triumphed and was indignant. 
What takes olf a little from the triumph 
is, that, in unison with the press, for 
seamen in England, tliere was in France 
the press for soldiers. In all the large 
French towns, every able-bodied man, 
passing along the streets to his business, 
was liable to be forced by the crimps 
into a house called a four. There he was 
shut up pell-mell with others. Those, 
who were fit for service, were picked 
out ; and the recruiters sold these pass- 
ers-by to officers. In 1695, there were 
thirty of these fours in Paris. 

The laws concerning Ireland, emanat- 
ing from Queen Anne, were atrocious. 

Anne was born in 1664, two years 
before the Fire of London ; whercui)on 
the astrologers (there were some still, 
as witness Louis XIV., who came into 
the world under the auspices of an as- 
trologer, and swaddled in a horoscope) 
had predicted that, being the elder sister 
of the deceased, she would be Queen. 
She was so, thanks* to astrology, and 
to the Kevolution of 1668. She felt 
humiliated at having only had Gilbert, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, for her 
sponsor. To be god-daughter of the 
Pope was no longer possible in Eng- 
land. A simple primate is a mediocre 
god-father. Anne had to be contented 
with one. It was her own fault. Why 
was she a Protestant ? 

Denmark had endowed her virgin- 
ity — tirginitas empta^ as say the old 


letters patent — with a dowry of six 
thousand two hundred and flfty pounds 
sterling per annum, secured on the 
bailiwick of Wardinbourg, and the 
island of Fehmarn. 

Anne followed, without conditions 
and by mere routine, the traditions of 
William. The English, under this roy- 
alty born of a revolution, had just so 
much liberty as could be secured, be- 
tween the Tower of London wherein 
they clapped the orator, and the pil-' 
lory wherein they clapped the writer. 
Anne spoke Danish a little for her 
asides with her husband, and French a 
little for her asides with Bolingbroke. 
Pure gibberish the latter; but it was, 
especially at court, the grand English 
manner of speaking French. There 
was not a loon-mot.^ save in French. 

Anne paid great attention to moneys, 
particularly to the coinage in copper, 
which is of low value and popular ; she 
desired to cut a grand ffgure therein. 
Six farthings were struck under lier 
reign.' On the reverse of the flrst three, 
she had simply a throne engraved ; on 
the reverse of the fourth, she desired to 
have a triumphal car; and on the re- 
verse of the sixth, a goddess holding a 
sword in one hand and an olive-bran cli in 
the other, with the motto Bello et Pace. 
Daughter of James II., who was simple- 
minded and fierce, she was brutal. 

And, at the same time, she was gen- ■ 
tie at heart. A contradiction which is 
only one in appearance. A fit of anger 
metamorphosed her. Heat up sugar; 
it wiU boil. 

Anne was popular. England loves 
female sovereigns. Wherefore ? Franco 
excludes them. That is one reason 
already. Perhaps, after all, there is no 
other. For English historians, Eliza- 
beth stands for greatness. Anno for 
goodness. As you please. Be it so. 
But there is nothing delicate in tliese 
feminine' reigns. The lines are heavily 
drawn. It is gro'ss greatness and gross 


1 


BY THE idNG’S COMMAND. 


122 

goodness. As for their immaculate vir- 
tue, whereto England clings, we have 
nothing to say against it. Elizabeth is 
a virgin tempered by Essex, and Anne 
is a spouse complicated with Boling- 
broke. 

III. 

One idiotic habit that peoples have, 
is attributing to the king what they do 
themselves. They fight. Whose is the 
glory ? The king’s. They pay. Whose 
the magnificence? The king’s. And 
the peoples like to be rich in this fashion. 
The king receives from the poor a 
crown-piece, and renders back to the 
poor a farthing. How generous he is ! 
The colossal pedestal looks up to the pig- 
my superstructure. How tall the mani- 
kin is ! He is on my back. A dwarf has 
an excellent mode of being higher than 
a giant ; it is to perch himself upon the 
other’s shoulders. But that the giant 
should let him do it, there’s the odd 
part of it ; and that he should admire 
the baseness of the dwarf, there’s the 
stupidity. Human ingenuousness ! 

The equestrian statue, reserved for 
kings alone, is an excellent type of 
royalty ; the horse is the people. Only, 
the horse transfigures himself by de- 
grees. At the beginning, he is an ass ; 
at the end, he is a lion. Then he 
throws his rider to the ground, and we 
have 1642 in England, and 1789 in 
France ; and sometimes he devours 
him, in which case we have in England 
1649, and in France 1793. 

That the lion can again become a 
jackass, this is surprising, but a fact. 
It was thus in England. The pack- 
saddle of royalist idolatry was once 
more put on. Queen Anne, as we have 
remarked, was popular. What did she 
to this end? Nothing. Nothing — this 
is all that is asked of England’s sov- 
ereign. He receives, for this nothing 
at all, thirty millions of francs a year. 
In 1705, England, that had only thir- 1 


teen vessels - of - war under Elizabeth, 
and thirty-six under James I., could 
count a hundred and fifty of them. 
The English had three armies : five 
thousand men in Catalonia, ten thou- 
sand in Portugal, fifty thousand in 
Flanders, besides which they paid forty 
millions per annum to monarchical and 
diplomatic Europe, a sort of woman of 
the town whom the English people 
have always had in keeping. The Par- 
liament having voted a loan of thirty- 
four millions in contingent annuities, 
there was crowding at the Exchequer 
to subscribe to it. England was send- 
ing a squadron to the East Indies, and a 
squadron to the coasts of Spain under 
Admiral Leake, without reckoning a 
reserve of four hundred sail under Ad- 
miral Shovel. England had just amal- 
gamated Scotland with herself. It was 
the period between Hochstet and Kam- 
illies, and one of these victories seemed 
to foreshadow the other. England, in 
drawing that net at Hochstet, had made 
prisoners of twenty-seven battalions 
and four regiments of dragoons, and 
had taken away a hundred leagues of 
country from France, falling back, un- 
done, from the Danube to the Ehine. 
England was stretching a hand to Sar- 
dinia and the 'Balearic Islands. She 
was bringing in triumph into her jiorts 
ten Spanish ships-of-the-line, and many 
a galleon freighted with gold. Hudson’s 
Bay and Straits were already half-sur- 
rendered by Louis XIY. ; it was sup- 
posed that he was about to give up also 
Acadia, St. Christopher, and New- 
foundland, and that it would be a bit 
of too much good luck if England still 
left to Cape Breton the King of France 
fishing for cod. England was about to 
impose upon him the shame of demol- 
ishing himself the fortifications of Dun- 
kirk. In the mean time, she had taken 
Gibraltar, and was taking Barcelona. 
How many great things accomplished ! 
How can one help admiring Queen 


QUEEN ANNE. 


123 


Anne, who took the trouble to live in 
those days ? 

From a certain point of view, Anne’s 
reign seems to be a reaction from the 
reign of Louis XIY . Anne, for a mo- 
ment parallel with that monarch in the 
conjuncture that is called history, bears 
to him a vague reflected resemblance. 
Like him, she figures in a grand reign. 
She has her monuments, her arts, her 
victories, her captains, her men of let- 
ters, her chest for pensioning celebri- 
ties, her gallery of masterpieces side by 
side with her own majesty. Her court 
also assumes in regard to her the form 
of a procession, and has its triumphal 
aspects, its order, its march. It is a 
miniature copy of all the great men of 
Versailles, already none too great. 
The still - life deception is there ; let 
God save the Queen! be added, which 
might then have been borrowed from 
Lulli, and the whole picture becomes 
'an illusion. Hot a personage is want- 
ing. Christopher Wren is a very pas- 
sable Mansard ; Somers is the equal of 
Lamoignon. Anne has a Eacine who 
is Dryden, a Boileau who is Pope, a 
Colbert who is Godolphin, a Louvois 
who is Pembroke, and a Turenne who 
is Marlborough — though you must in- 
crease the size ,of the wigs and diminish 
that of the foreheads. Altogether, it is 
solemn and pompous; and Windsor, at 
that epoch, might have looked like a 
sham Marly. Every thing, however, is 
feminine; and the Father Tellier of 
Anne is called Sarah Jennings. For 
the rest, a dawning of their irony — 
which, fifty years later, will be philoso- 
phy — outlines itself in literature, and 
the Protestant Tartufe is unmasked by 
Swift, just as the Catholic Tartufe had 
been denounced by Molibre. notwith- 
standing also that, at this period, Eng- 
land quarrels with and defeats France, 
she imitates her and profits by her en- 
lightenment; it is French light that 
shines upon the forehead of England. 


It is a pity that Anne’s reign should 
have lasted only a dozen years ; other- 
wise the English might easily have been 
persuaded to speak of the age of Anne 
as we speak of the age of Louis XIY. 
Anne comes to the front in 1702, when 
Louis XIY. is declining. It is one of 
the curiosities of history, that the rising 
of this pale star coincides with the set- 
ting of that star of purple, and that, at 
the instant when France had her King 
Sun, England should have had her 
Queen Moon. 

Another point to be noted. Louis 
XIY., though they were at war with 
him, was greatly admired in England. 
“He is the king that France wants,” 
said the English. The Englishman’s 
love for his liberty is mixed up with a 
certain recognition of another man’s 
servitude. This kindly feeling toward 
the chains that bind a neighbor is 
pushed sometimes even to enthusiasm 
on behalf of a despot close at hand. 

To sum up : Anne made her people 
“happ^',” as has been said thrice over, 
and with a gracious persistence, on 
pages six and nine of his dedication, and 
page three of his preface, by the French 
translator of Beeverel. 

IV. 

Queex Anne had a slight grudge 
against the Duchess Josiane, for two 
reasons. 

In the first place, because she found 
the Duchess Josiane pretty. 

Secondly, because she found the 
Duchess Josiane’s betrothed husband 
handsome. 

Two grounds for jealousy suffice for 
a woman; one alone is enough for a 
Queen. 

Let us add this. She bore her mal- 
ice, for being her sister. 

Anne did not approve of women being 
pretty. She considered it detrimental 
to morality. 

As for herself, she was ugly. 


124 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Not from preference, however. 

A part of her religion grew out of 
this ugliness. 

Josiane, beautiful and philosophic, 
troubled the Queen. 

For an ugly Queen, a pretty Duchess 
is not an agreeable sister. 

There was another grievance, the 
iniioToi^er origin of Josiane. 

Anne was the daughter of Anne 
Hyde, simply a lady, legitimately, but 
unfortunately, espoused by James II., 
when he was Duke of York. Anne 
having some of this inferior blood in 
her veins, felt as though she were only 
half royal; Josiane, brought into the 
world altogether irregularly, made more 
conspicuous the mischance — -less in it- 
self, but real — of the Queen’s birth. The 
offspring of a misalliance saw without 
pleasure, not far from herself, the off- 
spring of bastardy. There was herein 
a disobliging resemblance. Josiane had 
the right to say to Anne: “My mother 
is just as good as yours.” At court, 
this was not said ; but, evidently, it was 
thought. It was annoying for the roy- 
al majesty. "Why this Josiane? How 
came she to think of being born? Of 
what use is a Josiane? Certain rela- 
tionships are belittling. 

Nevertheless, Anne bore herself pleas- 
antly toward Josiane. 

Perhaps she might have loved her, if 
they liad not been sisters. 

VI. 

BARKILPIIEDEO. 

It is useful to know what people are 
about, and it is wise to keep an eye on 
them to some extent. 

Josiane caused Lord David to bo 
\vmtched a little by a man of her own, 
in whom' she had confidence, and whose 
name was Barkilphedro. 

Lord David prudently caused Josiane 
to be observed by a man of his own, of 


whom he was sure, and whose name 
was Barkilphedro. 

Queen Anne, for her part, secretly 
kept herself informed of the acts and 
movements of the Duchess Josiane, her 
bastard sister, and of Lord David, her 
future brother-in-law in a left-handed 
way, by a man of her own, on whom 
she could fully rely, and whose name 
was Barkilphedro. 

This Barkilphedro had his fingers on 
these keys, Josiane, Lord David, the 
Queen. One man between two women ! 
What modulations were possible ! What 
an amalgamation of souls ! 

Barkilphedro had not always occu- 
pied this splendid position for whisper- 
ing into three ears. 

He was an old servant of the Duke 
of York. lie had aimed at being a man 
of the church, but had failed. The 
Duke of York, a Prince in England and 
in Pome, made up of kingly Popery 
and legal Anglicanism, had his Catholic 
household, and his Protestant house- 
hold, and might have promoted Bar- 
kilphedro in the one or the other-hierar- 
chy, but that he did not think him 
Catholic enough for an almoner or 
Protestant enough for a chaplain. So 
that Barkilphedro found himself, be- 
tween these two religions, with his soul 
on the floor. 

This is not a bad position for certain 
souls of a reptile nature. 

There are some roads that can only 
be ’travelled, crawding on the belly. 

An obscure, but nutritious, domestic 
service was for some time the sole sub- 
sistence of Barkilphedro. Sei-vice is 
something, but he w'anted powder in ad- 
dition. He was about to reach it, pos- 
sibly, when James II. fell. All had to 
be begun over again. There was noth- 
ing to be done under William III., an 
awkward fellow, who had in his style 
of reigning a prudery which he mistook 
for integrity. Barkilphedro, his patron 
J ames having been dethroned, did not. 


BAEKILPHEDEO. 


125 


all at once, come to' rags. A certain 
something, that survives fallen mon- 
archs, nourishes and sustains for a while 
their parasites. The remainder of the 
exhaustible sap keeps alive, for two or 
three days, at the ends of the limbs, 
the leaves of the uprooted tree ; then 
suddenly the leaf grows yellow and 
dries up, and so does the courtier. 

Thanks to that embalming called 
legitimacy, the prince himself, though 
fallen and cast quite away, holds on 
and maintains himself; it is not the 
same thing with the courtier, who is 
far more dead than the king. The king 
down there is a mummy ; the courtier 
up here is a phantom. It is an extreme 
emaciation, to be the shadow of a shade. 
Accordingly, Barkilphedro became a 
starveling. 1’hen he adopted the lit- 
erary profession. 

But he was driven out even of the 
kitchens. Sometimes he did not know 
where he should sleep.* “'Who shall 
take me from this sleeping out of 
doors?” said he. And he struggled 
on. All that is touching in patience 
under adversity he exhibited. He had, 
moreover, the talent of the little insect 
tree-borer, that knows how to bore up- 
ward from below. In profiting by the 
name of James II., his memories, his 
constancy, his kindness of heart, etc., 
he had bored his way up to the Duchess 
Josiane. 

Josiane took a liking to this man of 
wretchedness and wit, two things that 
moved her. She presented him to Lord 
Dirry-Moir, gave him lodgings in the 
servants’ quarters, attached him to her 
household, was kind to him, and some- 
times even spoke to him. Barkilphe- 
dro was no longer cold or hungry. 
Josiane thee’d and thou’d him. It was 
the fashion for great ladies to thee and 
thou literary men, who permitted it. 
The Marquise de Mailly received, lying 
in bed, Koy whom she had never 
seen, and said to him — “It is thou that 


hast written L’ Ann6e Galante ? Good- 
morning.” At a later period the men 
of letters returned the theeing and thou- 
ing. The day came when Fabre d’Eg- 
lantine said to the Duchess de Eohan : 

“ Aj*t thou not La Chabot? ” 

As for Barkilphedro, to be thee’d and 
thou’d was a triumph. He was intox- 
icated by it. He had aspired to this 
contemptuous familiarity. 

— Lady Josiane thees and thous 
me ! said he to himself. And he rub- 
bed his hands together. 

He took advantage of this theeing 
and thouing to gain ground. He be- 
came a sort of familiar in the private 
apartments of Josiane, never annoying 
her, quite unperceived; the duchess 
would almost have changed her 
chemise before him. All this, how- 
ever, was precarious. Barkilphedro had 
aimed at position. A duchess was the 
half-way point. The subterranean gal- 
lery that did not quite lead to the queen, 
as a piece of work, was a failure. 

One i’ay Barkilphedro said to Josi- 
ane : 

— Would your Grace make my for- 
tune ? 

— What dost thou wish? asked Jo- 
siane. 

— Employment. 

— Employment ! for thee ! 

— Yes, Madam. 

— What an idea that thou shouldst 
ask for employment! Thou art good 
for nothing. 

— It is for that reason that I ask for 
it. 

Josiane laughed. 

— Of all the occupations for which 
thou art not fit, which dost thou desire ? 

— That of uncorker of the bottles of 
the Ocean. 

Josiane laughed the louder. 

— What is that? Thou art quizzing' 
me. 

— Ho, Madam. 

— I will amuse myself with answer- 


1^6 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


ing thee seriously, said the duchess. 
What dost thou wish to he? Say it 
again. 

— Uncorker of the bottles of the 
Ocean. 

— All is possible at court. Is there 
such an office as that ? 

— Yes, Madam. 

— Teach me something new. Go on. 

— There is such an office. 

— Swear it to me upon the soul that 
thou hast not. 

— I swear it. 

— I don’t believe thee. 

— Thanks, Madam. 

— Then thou wouldst — ? Begin over 
again. 

— Unseal the bottles of the sea. 

— That is an office which ought not 
to fatigue thee. It is like currycomb- 
ing the Bronze Horse. 

— Almost. 

— nothing to do. It is indeed a 
place that suits thee. Thou art fit for 
that. 

— You see that I am fit for some- 
thing. 

— Ah ! there, thou art making fun. 

, There is really such an office? 

Barkilphedro assumed an attitude of 
the most respectful gravity. 

— Madam, you have an august father, 
James II., King, and „an illustrious 
brother-in-law George of Denmark, 
Duke of Cumberland. Your father has 
been, and your brother-in-law is. Lord 
High Admiral of England. 

— Are these the novelties that thou 
wast going to teach me ? I know all 
this quite as well as thyself. 

— But here is something your Grace 
does not know. There are in the sea 
three kinds of things — those which are 
at the bottom Derelict^ those which 
float on the water Flotsam^ and those 
which the waves cast upon the land. 
Jetsam. 

— What else ? 

— These three things. Derelict, Flot- 


sam, and Jetsam, belong to the Lord 
High Admiral. 

— What else? 

— Your Grace understands? 

— Hot a bit of it. 

— All that is in the sea, that it swal- 
lows up, that floats upon it, and that it 
throws upon tlie strand, all belongs to 
the Admiral of England. 

— All. Very well. Go on. 

— Except the sturgeon, which be- 
longs to the king. 

— I should have thought, said Josi- 
ane, that all this belonged to Neptune. 

— Neptune is an idiot. He has lost 
it all. He has let England take the 
whole of it. 

— Finish thy' recital. 

— Prizes of the sea is the name 
given to these things picked up. 

— Be it so. 

— The store is inexhaustible. There 
is always something floating about, 
something cast ashore. This is the 
contribution of the sea. The sea pays 
tribute to England. 

— I gladly consent. But conclude. 
— Your Grace understands that this 
habit of the Ocean has created a bu- 
reau. 

— Where is it ? 

— At the Admiralty. 

— What bureau ? 

— The bureau of the prizes of the 
sea. 

" — Very well. 

— The bureau is divided into three 
offices. Derelict, Flotsam, Jetsam ; and 
for each office there is an office-holder. , 
— And then — 

— A ship in the open sea would com- 
municate something to the land — that it 
is sailing in such a latitude, that it has 
just encountered a marine monster, 
that it is in sight of a coast, that it is in 
distress, that it is going to capsize, that 
it is a total loss, et cetera; the captain 
takes a bottle, puts inside the scrap of 
paper on which he has written what he 


BARKILPIIEDRO SHOWN UP. 


127 


had to say, seals it up, and throws the 
bottle into the sea. If the bottle goes 
to the bottom, this concerns officer 
Derelict ; if it floats, this concerns 
officer Flotsam ; if it is carried ashore 
by the waves, this concerns officer Jet- 
sam. 

— And thou wouldst be officer Jet- 
sam? 

— Exactly. 

— And this is what thou callest being 
uncorker of the bottles of the Ocean ? 

— Because there is such an office. 

— Why dost thou desire this place 
more than the other two? 

— Because it is vacant at this mo- 
ment. 

— In what consist its duties ? 

— Madam, in 1598, a bottle tarred 
over, which had been found by a con- 
ger-eel fisherman, in the quicksands 
of the strand of Epidium Promonto- 
rium, was carried to Queen Elizabeth ; 
and a parchment which was drawn 
from the bottle gave information to 
England that Holland had taken pos- 
session, without saying any thing about 
it, of an unknown country. Nova Zem- 
bla ; that this occupation had occurred 
in June, 1596 ; that in this country the 
discoverers had been devoured by the 
bears ; and that their manner of passing 
the winter had been written down on 
a paper enclosed in a musket-case, hang- 
ing up in a chimney of the wooden 
building erected, and left on the island 
by the Hollanders, who were all dead ; 
and that this chimney was made of a 
cask with the heads knocked out, built 
in the roof. 

— I understand but little of thy rig- 
marole. 

— Bo it so. Elizabeth understood 
it. One country more for Holland was 
one country less for England. That a 
bottle had imparted the information, 
was thought a very important matter. 
And from that day the order was issued, 
that whoever should find a sealed bottle 


on the sea-shore should carry it to the 
Admiral of England, under pain of the 
gallows. The admiral detailed an officer 
for opening these bottles, who com- 
municated their contents to her ma- 
jesty, when there was occasion for it. 

— Do these bottles often come to the 
Admiralty ? 

— Rarely. But this is of no moment. 
The office exists. It has assigned to it 
a chamber and lodging at the Admi- 
ralty. 

— And this way of doing nothing, 
what do they pay for it ? 

— A hundred guineas a year. 

— And thou annoyest me for that? 

— It is the means of living. 

— Like a beggar. 

— In a manner becoming to people 
of my class. 

— A hundred guineas, it is a mere 
puff! 

— What supports you for a minute 
supports us for a year, us fellows. 
This is the advantage of being poor. 

— 'Piiou shalt have the place. Eight 
days afterward, thanks to the good-will 
of Josiane, thanks to the position of 
Lord David Dirry-Moir, Barkilphedro, 
saved henceforth, rescued from the pre- 
carious, placing his foot upon solid 
ground, lodged, his expenses paid, sal- 
aried with a hundred guineas a year, 
was installed at the Admiralty. 

f 

VH. 

BAEKILPHEDEO SHOWN UP. 

Theee is one thing that never fails — 
that is ingratitude. 

Barkilphedro was not wanting herein. 

Having received so many acts of 
kindness from Lady Josiane, naturally 
he had but one thought — that of aven- 
ging himself for them. 

Let us add that Josiane was pretty, 
great, young, rich, powerful, illustrious; 
and that Barkilphedro was ugly, squat. 


128 


BY TIIE KING’S COMMAND. 


old, poor, 'dependent, obscure. It was 
matter of urgent necessity, that be 
sliould avenge himself for that also. 

'When one’s Avhole being is darkness, 
how shall one pardon such brilliancy of 
light ? 

Barkilphedro had but one thing in his 
favor, a big belly. 

A big belly is accepted as the sign of 
a benevolent disposition. But the belly 
aggravated Barkilphedro’s hypocrisy. 
For this man was a sad reprobate. 

'\Vhat was Barkilphedro’s age ? Any. 
The age necessary for the matter in 
hand. He was old in wrinkles and 
gray hair, and young in elasticity of 
mind. lie was alert and heavy, a mon- 
keyish hippopotamus. Eoyalist, cer- 
tainly ; republican, who knows ? Cath- 
olic, perhaps ; Protestant, beyond a 
doubt. For the Stuarts, probably ; for 
the house of Brunswick, undeniably. To 
be for avails nothing, unless at the same 
time one may be against. Barkilphe- 
dro practised this wisdom. 

The office of “ uncorker of the bot- 
tles of the Ocean ” was not so absurd 
as Barkilphedro had seemed to make 
it out. The reclamations, which to-day 
we should call declamations, of Garcie- 
Ferrandez in his Ocean Chart against 
the spoliation of stranded vessels, called 
the Eight of WrecTc., and against the 
pillage of waifs by the people of the 
coast, had made a sensation in England, 
and had brought about this improve- 
ment for the shipwrecked — that their 
goods, chattels, and effects, instead of 
being stolen by the country-folk, were 
confiscated by the Lord Admiral. 

All the rubbish cast up by the sea 
on the English coast, merchandise, 
hulls of ships, bales, boxes, etc., belonged 
to the Lord Admiral ; but, and herein 
came to light the importance of the po- 
sition sought by Barkilphedro, the fioat- 
ing bottles containing messages or other 
information attracted the particular at- 
tention of the Admiralty. Shipwrecks 


constituted one of the grave concerns of 
England. Navigation being its life, 
shipwreck was its peculiar care. The 
English waters were in a constant state 
of disquietude. The little glass bottle 
thrown to the waves from a foundering 
vessel bore a supreme token, precious 
in every point of view. Token of the 
ship, token of the crew, token of the 
spot, the hour and the manner of the 
shipwreck, token of the winds that had 
buffeted the vessel, token of the currents 
that had borne the floating flask ashore. 
The office that Barkilphedro filled has 
been abolished more than a century; 
but it was really a useful one. The 
last incumbent was 'William Hussey, of 
Dodington in Lincolnshire. The man 
who held this office was a sort of re- 
porter of the affairs of the sea. All the 
close and sealed-up vases, bottles, flasks, 
jars, thrown upon the English shore 
by the tide, were sent to him ; he alone 
had the right to open them ; he was the 
first to learn the secret they contained ; 
he classified and labelled them in his 
registry ; the phrase to lodge a pamper at 
the registry., yet in use in the Channel 
Islands, has this derivation. Indeed, a 
precaution had been taken in the mat- 
ter. No receptable could be unsealed 
and uncorked, except in presence of two 
sworn officials of the Admiralty bound 
to secrecy, who signed, jointly with the 
incumbent of the Jetsam office, the rec- 
ord of the opening. But these sworn 
officials being held to secrecy, it resulted 
that Barkilphedro had a certain discre- 
tionary latitude ; it depended upon him, 
up to a certain point, whether a fact 
should be suppressed or brought to 
light. 

The fragile waifs were far from being, 
as Barkilphedro had told Josiane, un- 
frequent and inconsiderable. Now they 
reached the land in good time, and 
again after some years. This depended 
on the winds and currents. This cus- 
tom of throwing bottles to the waves, 


BAEKILPHEDEO SHOWN UP. 


129 


like that of votive pictures, has gone a 
little into disuse ; hut, in these religious 
days, all who were about to die freely 
transmitted in this manner their latest 
thought to God and man; and some- 
times these missives of the deep abound- 
ed at the Admiralty. A parchment kept 
at the chateau of Audlyene (old spell- 
ing), and annotated by the Earl of Suf- 
folk, High Treasurer of England under 
James I.,' states that, in the year 1615 
alone, fifty-two tarred gourds, bladders, 
and the like, making mention of ships 
in disaster, had been reported and en- 
tered upon the register of the Lord Ad- 
miral. 

Service at court is like a drop of oil 
that continually goes on spreading itself. 
Thus it is that the porter gets to he a 
chancellor, and the ostler gets to be 
Lord High Constable. The special of- 
ficer, who filled the place sought for 
and obtained by Barkilphedro, had 
been habitually a confidential person. 
Elizabeth had so wished it. At court, 
confidence means intrigue, and intrigue 
means promotion. This functionary 
had ended in being a person of some 
consequence. He was a clerk, and took 
rank immediately after the two grooms 
of the Almoner. He had admission to 
the palace, although we should add that 
it was called the “humble entry,” hu- 
milis introitm^ and even to the. bed- 
chamber. For the usage had been that 
he should inform the royal person, when 
the thing was worth the trouble, of 
these picked-up objects, often very cu- 
rious things, wills of dying people, fare- 
wells waved to one’s native land, reve- 
lations of barratry and offences against 
maritime law, legacies to the Crown, 
etc. ; so that he kept up a communica- 
tion between his registry and the Court, 
and rendered, from time to time, an ac- 
count to his Majesty of this unsealing 
of unlucky bottles. It was the dark 
bureau of the Ocean. 

Elizabeth, who spoke Latin with fa- 
9 


cility, asked Tamfeld, of Coley in Berk- 
shire, the Jetsam officer of his time, 
when he had brought to her one of 
these old papers cast up by the sea — 
Quid mihi scribit Neptunus? What 
does Neptune write to me? 

The boring had at last b,een finished. 
The little tree-borer had succeeded. 
Barkilphedro approached the person of 
the Queen. 

It was all he desired. 

To make his fortune ? 

Not at all. 

To puli down that of others. 

Happiness far greater. 

There is enjoyment in mischief. 

It is not given to everybody to have 
a vague but implacable desire for mis- 
chief, and never to lose sight of it. 
Barkilphedro had this tenacity. 

The idea held him with the grip of 
the bull-dog’s mouth. 

It gave him a sombre satisfaction at 
heart to feel himself relentless. Let 
him but have a victim in his fangs, or 
the certainty of doing evil in his heart, 
and he wanted nothing more. 

He shivered contentedly, in the hope 
that other people were cold. 

There is opulence in being wicked. 
Such a man, though we may think him 
poor, and he is so, indeed, has all his 
wealth in malignity, and likes it so. 
All is in the contentment one possesses. 
To do a bad turn — it is the same thing 
with doing a good turn — is more than 
money. Hard on the sufferer, happy 
for the doer. Catesby, the accomplice 
of Guy Fawkes in the papist Gunpow- 
der Plot, said: “Let me only see Par- 
liament blow up, with its four feet in 
the air. I would not exchange that for 
a million sterling.” 

What was this Barkilphedro? All 
that was little and all that was terrible. 
An envious man. 

Envy is always found at court. 

Court abounds in sauce-boxes, in 
people out of work, in rich idlers fam- 


130 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


isliing for gossip, in searcliers for nee- 
dles in haystacks, in dealers in wretch- 
edness, in biters bit, in sprightly fools 
who have the talk of an envious man 
in request. 

"What a refreshing thing is the evil 
that one says of others ! 

Envy is good material for making a 
spy. 

There is a subtle analogy between 
this natural passion, envy, and this so- 
cial function of playing the spy. The 
spy conducts the sport on behalf of 
others, like the dog ; the envious man 
hunts on his own account, like the cat. 

A ferocious myself is the substance 
of the envious man. 

For his other qualities, Barkilphedro 
was prudent, secretive, adhesive. He 
held on to every thing, and busied him- 
self with his hatred. An inordinate 
baseness implies an inordinate vanity. 
He was liked by those whom he amused, 
and hated by others ; but he was con- 
scious of being disdained by such as 
hated him, and scorned by such as 
liked him. He was under perfect self- 
control. All his antagonisms bubbled 
up noiselessly in his vengeful submis- 
sion. He was indignant — as if scoun- 
drels had that right ! He was silently 
a prey to the furies. To swallow every 
thing was his talent. He had secret in- 
ternal rages, frenzies of concealed pas- 
sion, of dark and smothered flames, 
which no one perceived; his was a 
flery soul that consumed its own 
smoke. The surface smiled. He was 
obliging, earnest, facile, good-tempered, 
complaisant. No matter to whom, no 
matter where, he bowed. He swayed 
to the ground at a pulf of wind. What 
a source of fortune it is to have a reed 
for the spinal column ! 

These secretive and venomous crea- 
tures are not so rare as one might sup- 
pose. We live with them gliding about 
all around us. Why these hurtful be- 
ings ? Baffling question ! The dreamer 1 


is constantly propounding it to himself, 
and the thinker has never answered it. 
Hence the sad look of the philosopher, 
forever flxed on that mountain of shad- 
ows which is his destiny, and from the 
top of which the colossal spectre of 
evil lets fall handfuls of serpents upon 
the earth. 

Barkilphedro had an obese body and 
a lean visage. His trunk was heavy, 
and his face bony. He had short, fur- 
rowed flnger-nails, knotty fingers, flat 
thumbs, coarse hair, a considerable 
space from one temple to the other, 
and the forehead of a murderer, wide 
and low. His half-opened eye con- 
cealed the insignificance of his look, 
under bushy eyebrows. Ilis nose, long, 
pointed, crooked, and flabby, extended 
nearly to his mouth. Barkilphedro, 
suitably dressed as a Eoman emperor, 
would have slightly resembled Domi- 
tian. His rusty yellow countenance 
looked as if modelled of a viscous 
paste ; his immobile cheeks resembled 
putty; he had all manner of ugly, 
furrowed wrinkles ; his jaw was mas- 
sive, his chin heavy, his ear vulgar. In 
repose, seen in profile, the upper lip 
was raised at an angle, so as to disclose 
two teeth. These teeth seemed to look 
at you. The teeth looked, even as the 
eye bit. 

Patience, temperance, faith, reserve, 
moderation, suavity, diffidence, sweet- 
ness, polish, sobriety, chastity, finished 
and rounded off Barkilphedro. He 
calumniated these virtues in possessing 
them. 

Barkilphedro very soon got a footing 
at court. 

VHI. 

INFEEI. 

At court, you may gain a footing, in 
two ways. In the clouds, you are 
august; in the wind, you have pow- 
er. 


INFEEI. 


131 


In the former case, yon hail from 
Olympus; in the second, from the 
wardrobe. 

He who is of Olympus has only the 
thunderbolt ; he who is of the ward- 
robe has the police. . 

The wardrobe contains all the in- 
struments of authority, and sometimes 
— for it is traitorous — of vengeance. 
Heliogabalus happened to die in one. 
It, then, bears a less decent name. 

As a general thing, it is not so tragic. 
It is there that Alb6roni admires Yen- 
dome. The wardrobe becomes readily 
a place of audience for loyal person- 
ages. It serves the purpose of the 
throne. Louis XIY. receives therein 
the Duchess of Burgundy; Philip Y. 
therein is cheek by jowl with the 
queen. The priest penetrates there. 
The wardrobe is sometimes a branch 
establishment of the confessional. 

This is why there are fortunes in 
low conditions at court. Nor are these 
the smallest. 

If you would be great, under Louis 
XI., be Pierre de Rohan, Marshal of 
France ; if you would have influence, 
be Oliver le Daim, barber. If, under 
Marie de M4dicis, you would bo glo- 
rious, be Sillery, chancellor; if you 
would be of importance, be La Han- 
nou, chambermaid. If you would be 
illustrious under Louis XY., be Choi- 
seul, minister ; if you would be redoubt- 
able, bo Lebel, valet. Giveh Louis 
XIY., Bontemps who made his bed for 
him was more powerful than Louvois 
who made him his armies, and Turenne 
who made him his victories. Take 
away Father Joseph from Richelieu, 
and behold Richelieu almost empty. 
He has mystery on his side at least. 
Ilis scarlet eminence is superb ; his 
gray eminence is terrible. To be a 
worm — what force ! All the Xarvaez, 
blended with all the O’Donnells, do less 
work than one Sister Patrocinio. 

i instance, the condition of this 


power is littleness. If you would re- 
main strong, remain insignificant. Be 
nothing at aU. The serpent, coiled up 
in repose, typifies at once the infinite 
and zero. 

One of these reptile fortunes had 
fallen to the lot of Barkilphedro. 

He had trailed himself just where he 
wished. 

Flat creatures enter everywhere. 
Louis XIY. had bugs in his bed, and 
Jesuits in his political machine. 

Of incompatibility, not a bit. 

In this world every thing is pendu- 
lum. To gravitate is to oscillate. One 
pole must have the other. Francis I. 
must have Triboulet ; Louis XY. must 
have Lebel. There exists a deep-rooted 
affinity between this extreme of height 
and this extreme of abasement. 

It is the abasement that directs. 
Nothing is easier of comprehension. 
He who is below pulls the strings. 

No position more convenient. 

Youiare the eye, and you have the 
ear. 

You are the eye of the government. 

You have the ear of the king. 

To have the king’s ear, is to draw 
and undraw, at your own fancy, the bolt 
of the royal conscience, and to cram 
into this conscience just what you please. 
The king’s mind is your cupboard. If 
you are a rag-gatherer, it is the basket 
at your back. The ear of kings does 
not belong to kings, which is the rea- 
son why, in short, these poor devils are 
but slightly responsible. He, who is 
not master of his thought, is not mas- 
ter of his action. A king — ^lie obeys. 

What? 

Some wicked soul or other, that from 
outside buzzes in his ear. Rueful fly of 
perdition ! 

This buzzing exercises sway. A reign 
is a dictation. 

The loud voice is the sovereign ; the 
low voice is the sovereignty. 

Those are the true historians, who. 


132 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


in a reign, can distinguish this low 
voice, and hear what it breathes into 
the loud voice. 

IX. 

HATE IS AS STEONG AS LOYE. 

Queen Anne had around her several 
of these low voices. Barkilphedro was 
one of them. 

Besides the Queen, he worked upon, 
influenced, and slyly tampered with 
Lady Josiane and Lord David. We 
have said already that he whispered 
into three ears — one ear more than 
Dangeau. Dangeau only whispered 
into two, in the days when, thrusting 
his head between Louis XIV., smitten 
with Henrietta, his sister-in-law, and 
Henrietta, smitten with her brother- 
in-law, Louis XIV. — Louis’s secretary 
known to Henrietta, and Henrietta’s 
unknown to Louis — placed in the very 
midst of a love-afiair between two pup- 
pets, he made up both the questions 
and the answers. 

Barkilj)hedro was so cheerful, so ready 
to take any thing up, so incapable of 
undertaking the defence of any thing 
whatsoever, so little devoted at heart, 
so ugly, so vicious, that it was in the 
very nature of things that a royal per- 
sonage should scarcely know how to do 
without him. When Anne had tasted 
of Barkilphedro, she cared not for any 
other flatterer. He flattered her, as they 
flattered Louis the Great, by stinging 
some one else. The king, being igno- 
rant, says Madame de Montchevreuil, 
one is compelled to scoff at the learned. 

To drop poison into the puncture, 
from time to time, is the acme of art. 
Nero likes to see Locusta at work. 

Koyal palaces are extremely penetra- 
ble ; the madrepore corals have an in- 
, ner passage-way easily guessed at, 
made practicable, and at need scooped 
out by the gnawing insect termed a 


courtier. A pretext for entry sufficed. 
Barkilphedro — ^having for pretext his 
commission — was, in a very short time, 
with the Queen, what he was with the 
Duchess Josiane, the indispensable do- 
mestic animal. An expression that he 
ventured to drop one day let him at 
once into the Queen’s secrets ; he learn- 
ed how much to depend upon her Ma- 
jesty’s goodness. The Queen was much 
attached to her lord steward, William 
Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, who 
was extremely weak-minded. This 
nobleman, who had taken all the de- 
grees at Oxford, and did not understand 
orthography, was simpleton enough to 
die, one fine morning. To die, at 
court, is the height of imprudence, for 
no one troubles himself to speak any 
more of you. The Queen, Barkilphedro 
being present, was lamenting the event, 
and concluded by exclaiming, with a 
sigh: 

— It is a pity that so many virtues 
should have been borne and served by 
so poor an intelligence. 

— God may have wished to have his 
ass! murmured Barkilphedro, in low 
tone and in French. 

The Queen smiled. Barkilphedro 
made a note of this smile. 

He drew the conclusion: To bite 
tickles. 

His malicious wit had leave to sally 
■forth. 

From this day forward, he thrust his 
curiosity everywhere ; his malignity 
also. He was allowed to have his way, 
so much was he feared. He who makes 
the king laugh makes the rest tremble. 

He was a potent wag. 

Every day he took a further step in 
advance, under ground. There was 
need of Barkilphedro. Several great 
men so far honored him with their con- 
fidence, as to charge him, on occasion, 
with scandalous commissions. 

The court is like gear. Barkilphedro 
became its motive power. Have you 


HATE IS AS STEONG AS LOVE. 


133 


noticed in certain macliinery how small 
is the regulating wheel ? 

J osiane, in particular, who made use, 
as we have pointed out, of Barkilphe- 
dro’s talents as a spy, had so much 
confidence in him, that she did not 
hesitate to put into his hands one of the 
secret keys of her suite of rooms, by 
means of which he could enter them at 
any hour. This excessive laying open 
of private life was a fashion in the 
seventeenth century, and was called 
giving the key. Josiane had given two 
of these confidential keys; Lord David 
had one, Barkilphedro had another. 

Besides, to penetrate abruptly into 
bedrooms was by no means an un- 
common practice in the olden style. 
Thence incidents. La Fert^, drawing 
aside suddenly the curtains of Made- 
moiselle Lafont’s bed, found Sainson 
there, the Black Musketeer, etc., etc. 

Barkilphedro excelled in making these 
sly discoveries, that subordinate and 
bring down the great to the little. His 
tread in the shade was tortuous, soft, 
and knowing. Like every perfect spy, 
he was made up of the executioner’s 
severity and of the patience of the mi- 
croscopist. He was a born courtier. 
Every courtier is a night-walker. The 
courtier prowls about in that sort of 
night, which may be called omnipo- 
tence. He has a dark lantern in his 
hand. He throws light upon any 
chosen point, and remains himself in 
the dark. "What he seeks with this 
lantern is not . a man ; it is a beast. 
What he finds is the king. 

Kings do not like any pretension to 
• being great, in those about them. Sar- 
casm, on all but themselves, charms 
them. The talent of Barkilphedro con- 
sisted in a perpetual lessening of lords 
and princes, to the profit of royal ma- 
jesty, itself by so much exalted. 

The secret key, held by Barkilphedro, 
was a double one, shaped dififerently 
at either end, so as to open the private 


apartments at Josiane’s two favorite 
residences, Hunkerville House in Lon- 
don, and Corleone Lodge at Windsor. 
These two buildings formed a portion 
of the Clancharlie inheritance. Hun- 
kerville House was close to Old-Gate. 
Old-Gate, in London, was an entrance 
by which you approached from Har- 
wich, and where was seen a statue of 
Charles II. having over his head an 
angel painted, and under his feet a lion 
and a unicorn sculptured. From Hun- 
kerville House, with an easterly wind, 
might be heard the chimes of St. Mary- 
lebone. Corleone Lodge was a Floren- 
tine palace, in brick and stone, with 
marble colonnades, built on pile-work 
at Windsor, at the extremity of the 
wooden bridge, and having one of the 
most splendid courts of honor in Eng- 
land. 

In this latter palace, very near Wind- 
sor Castle, Josiane was within easy 
reach of the Queen. Josiane was par- 
tial to it, notwithstanding. 

Kexi) to nothing outwardly — alto- 
gether rooted within — such was Bar- 
kilphedro’s influence over the queen. 
Nothing more difficult than to tear up 
these court-weeds; they strike deep, 
and offer no external grasp. To pluck 
up Roquelaure, Triboulet, or Brummel, 
is almost impossible. 

From day to day, and more and 
more, Anne relished Barkilphedro. 

Sarah Jennings is famous ; Barkil- 
phedro is unknown. His favor lay 
hidden. The very name, Barkilphedro, 
has not reached history. All the moles 
are not caught by the mole-catcher. 

Barkilphedro, formerly a candidate 
for orders, had studied every thing a 
little ; whatever is skimmed over gives 
for result — nothing. One may be a 
victim of the omnis res scibilis. To 
have under their craniums the cask of 
the Danaides is the misfortune of a 
whole race of the learned, which we 
may term the sterile. What Barkil- 


134 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


phedro had put into his head-piece had 
left it empty. 

The mind, like Mature, abhors a va- 
cuum. In the vacuum, Nature plants 
love ; the mind, not unfrequently, puts 
hate therein. Hate fills up. 

Hate, for hate’s sake, exists. Art, 
for art’s sake, is in nature, more than 
is believed. ' 

A man hates. He must, in fact, be 
doing something. 

Gratuitous hate, how formidable a 
term ! This is as much as to say, the 
hate that is its own reward. 

The bear lives by licking his paw. 

Indefinitely? No. The paw must 
be revictualled. There must be some- 
thing put underneath it. 

To hate indistinctly is soothing, and 
suflSces for some time ; but in the end 
there must be an object. Animos- 
ity, spread over all creation, exhausts, 
as does any solitary delight. Hate 
without object is like shooting without 
a mark. What makes the sport inter- 
esting is a heart to pierce. 

One can’t hate, solely for the honor 
of it. There must be a seasoning — a 
man, a woman, some one to ruin. 

This service, of giving interest to the 
game, of offering an aim, of envenom- 
ing hate by concentrating it, of amu- 
sing the sportsman with a sight of his 
living prey, of causing the watcher to 
anticipate the warm and smoking bub- 
bles of the blood that is about to flow, 
of cheering the bird-catcher with the 
lark’s credulity winged in vain, of be- 
ing a creature hatched unawares, to be 
murdered by intelligence — this delicate 
and horrible service, of which he who 
renders it is not conscious, did Josiane 
render to Barkilphedro. 

Thought is a projectile. Barkil- 
phedro, from the first day, had set 
himself to taking aim at Josiane with 
the evil intentions that were in his 
mind. An intention and a carbine are 
alike. Barkilphedro held his pointed. 


directing against the duchess all his 
secret malignity. Does this astonish 
you ? What has the bird that you fire 
at done to you? It is to eat him, say 
you. The same with Barkilphedro. 

Josiane could hardly be hit in the 
heart; the spot that is an enigma is 
vulnerable with difficulty. But she 
could be reached through her head, 
that is to say her pride. 

It was on this side that she thought 
herself strong, and that she was weak. 

Barkilphedro had taken account of it. 

If Josiane had been able to see clear- 
ly into the night of Barkilphedro, if 
she had been able to distinguish what 
there was in ambush behind that smile, 
this proud personage, so loftily placed, 
would probably have trembled. Hap- 
pily for the tranquillity of her slumbers, 
she was utterly ignorant as to what 
there was in the man. 

Things unexpected fuse together, one 
knows not how. The deep underlyings 
of life are formidable. There is no 
small hate. Hate is always enormous. 
It preserves its stature in the tiniest be- 
ing, and remains a monster. A hatred is 
all possible hatred. An elephant, hated 
by an emmet, is in peril. 

Even before striking, Barkilphedro 
experienced with delight the savor of 
the evil deed that he desired to effect. 
He did not, so far, know precisely what 
he would do against Josiane. But he 
was determined to do something. Such 
a resolution taken was much to start 
with. 

To annihilate Josiane would have 
b6en too great a success. Ho did not 
hope for it. But to humiliate her, to 
dwindle her down, to harass her, to 
redden those superb eyes with tears of 
rage — this would bo partial success. 
He reckoned on it. Tenacious, credu- 
lous, faithful in torturing any one else, 
not to be uprooted from his purpose. 
Nature had not thus constituted him 
for nothing. He well understood how 


HATE IS AS STKONG AS LOVE. 


135 


to find a flaw in Josiane’s golden armor, 
and how to cause the blood of this 
Olympian woman to trickle. What 
advantage, let us insist, was there for 
him herein ? An immense advantage. 
Returning evil for good. 

What is an envious person? xin un- 
grateful one. He detests the light that 
shines upon and warms him. Zoilus 
hates this boon— Homer. 

To make Josiane undergo what 
would in these days be called a vivisec- 
tion ; to have her, all palpitating, upon 
the anatomical table; to dissect her 
alive, leisurely, in a surgery somewhere ; 
as an amateur, to cut her in pieces while 
•she howled — this dream had its charm 
for Barkilphedro. 

To reach this result, it might be ne- 
cessary to suffer a little, which he 
would find all right. You may pinch 
yourself with the pincers. The knife, 
in straightening itself, may cut your fin- 
gers. What matters it? To be en- 
tangled slightly in Josiane’s torture 
would have been all the same to him. 
Tlie executioner, handling the red-hot 
iron, has his little part in the burning, 
and never heeds it. So that the other 
one suffer more, you feel nothing. To 
see the victim writhing takes away 
your own pain. 

Do what injures, happen what may ! 

Planning harm for other people is 
complicated with the acceptance of a 
dubious responsibility. You risk your- 
self in the danger to which you subject 
another, in proportion as the linking 
together of all things may bring about 
an unexpected collapse. This does not 
hold back* your true evil-doer. He ex- 
periences in joy what the patient un- 
dergoes in agony. He is tickled by this 
laceration. The bad man only expands 
himself amid horrors. Torture reacts 
upon him in self-satisfaction. The 
Duke of Alba warmed his hands at the 
pile. The fireside, anguish ; its reflect- 
ed light, pleasure. That such transpo- 


sitions should be possible makes one 
shiver. Our dark side may not be 
sounded. Exquisite torment — the ex- 
pression is in Bodin (book iv., page 
196) — has perhaps this triple and terri- 
ble meaning: research in the torture, 
suffering of the tortured, enjoyment of 
the torturer. Ambition, appetite — the 
words signify one sacrificed to anoth- 
er satisfied. How sad, that hope can 
be thus wayward ! To owe any one a 
grudge is to wish him ill. Why not 
good ? Can it be that the main leaning 
of our will is to the side of evil ? One 
of the hardest tasks of the just is to 
eradicate unceasingly from the soul the 
malevolence that is almost inexhausti- 
ble. Nearly all our longings, when 
probed, embody what is not avowed. 
For the thoroughly wicked — and this 
hideous perfection exists — “so much 
the worse for the others ! ” signifies 
“ so much the better for me ! ” Shade 
of man ! Hollow places ! 

Josiane had the fulness of security, 
conferred by ignorant pride, and made 
up of contempt for every thing. The 
feminine faculty for disdaining is re- 
markable. A disdain, unconscious, in- 
voluntary, and confiding — of such 
was Josiane. Barkilphedro, for her, 
was little more than a thing. She 
would have been greatly astonished, if 
she had been told that Barkilphedro 
really had an existence. 

She went, she came, she laughed, be- 
fore this man, who looked at her out 
of the corner of his eye. 

He, thoughtful on his part, was 
watching his opportunity. 

In proportion as he waited, his de- 
termination to throw something of 
hopelessness into the life of this woman 
augmented. 

Inexorable lying in wait ! 

' Besides, he gave himself excellent 
reasons. It is a mistake to suppose 
that rogues are devoid of self-esteem. 
They give account of themselves to 


136 


BY TIIE KING’S COMMAND. 


tliemselves in lofty monologues, and 
pitch their tone extremely high. What ! 
This Josiane had given him alms! 
She had crumbled upon him, as upon a 
mendicant, some farthings out of her 
colossal fortune. She had riveted and 
nailed him to an idiotic function. Yes, 
he, Barkilphedro, almost a man of the 
church, of capacity varied and pro- 
found, a learned personage, having in 
him the stuff for a reverend, he was 
employed to register bits of broken 
glass, fit for scraping off J ob’s pustules. 
If he passed his life in a miserable hole 
of a record-office, gravely uncorking 
stupid bottles, encrusted with all the 
impurities of the sea, and deciphering 
mouldy parchments, the smut of conjur- 
ing-books, the filth of wills, and one 
knows not what of illegible twaddle, 
it was all the fault of this Josiane ! 
What ! The creature absolutely thee'd 
and thou’d him ! 

And he was not to avenge himself! 

And he was not to punish this sort 
of thing ! 

Just as if! Why, there would be no 
more justice then here below ! 


X. 

FLAMINGS THAT WOULD BE SEEN, IF 
MAN WEEE TEANSPAEENT. 

What! this woman — this mad-cap, 
this lascivious dreamer, virgin for the 
nonce, this morsel of flesh that has not 
yet' yielded itself, this impertinence in 
princely coronet, this Diana through 
pride, not yet snapped up by the first 
comer — for lack of a chance, as they say, 
and I agree to it — this bastard of a riff- 
raff of a king who hadn’t the wit to keep 
his place, this duchess of a lucky hit, 
who, being a grand dame, played the 
goddess, and who, if poor, would have 
been on the town ; this lady almost, 
this thief of an exile’s possessions, this 


imperious beggar, because, one day, he, 
Barkilphedro, had nothing for his dinner 
and was without a resting-place, had the 
impudence to seat him at one end of 
her own table, and to nestle him in some 
hole or other of her insupportable pal- 
ace. Where was it? Xo matter where; 
perhaps in the garret, perhaps in the 
cellar. What’s the difference ? a little 
better off than the valets ; a little worse 
off than the horses! She had taken 
advantage of his distress — his, Barkil- 
phedro’s, and hastened to render him a 
service traitorously, which is what the 
rich do by way of humiliating, and of 
attaching the poor to themselves, like 
terriers that are led in a leash ! Be- 
sides, what did the service cost her? 
A service is worth its price. She had 
more than enough of rooms in her 
house ! Come to the aid of Barkilphe- 
dro, indeed ! A grand effort it was for 
her! Had she eaten a spoonful the 
less of turtle-soup? Had she denied 
herself any thing whatever, in her hate- 
ful superfluities? No; she had added 
to the superfluities a bit of vanity, an 
object of luxury, a good action for a 
feather in her cap, a man of wit suc- 
cored, a clergyman patronized! She 
could put on airs and say: “I lavish 
benefits; I give the men of letters 
something to peck ; I become their 
patroness. Isn’t he lucky to have 
found me, this poor wretch? What a 
friend of the arts^ I am ! ” And all for 
having prepared, in a villanous hole, 
a cot-bed under the framework of the 
roof ! And for his place at the Admi- 
ralty, Barkilphedro was indebted to Jo- 
siane for that. Zounds ! a famous post ! 
Josiane had made Barkilphedro what 
he was. She had created him ; so be it. 
Yes, created nothing, less than nothing ; 
for he felt himself, in this ridiculous 
office, bent down, stiffened in his joints, 
and disfigured. What d . ve to 

Josiane? The gratitude inch- 

back to his mother, who ^ i do- 


FLAMINGS, ETC. 


formed. Look aty tlie privileged, these 
heaped-up people, these new-comers, 
these favorites of that hideous step- 
mother, Fortune! And the man of 
talent, the Barkilphedro, was forced to 
range himself on the staircases, to how 
to the lackeys, to climb in the evening 
up a heap of stories, and to he cour- 
teous, assiduous, gracious, deferential, 
and agreeable, and to wear always on 
his muzzle a respectful grimace, as 
though there were no cause for grind- 
ing the teeth with rage. And all this 
time she was stringing pearls about her 
neck, and playing the lover’s part with 
her lout of a Lord David Dirry-Moir, 
tlie hussy 1 

UTever permit yourself to have a ser- 
vice done you. Advantage will he 
taken of it. Don’t let yourself he 
caught ill the very act of inanition. 
Somebody would console you. Because 
he was starving, this woman had made 
it a pretext for giving him something 
to eat. Thenceforward he was her do- 
mestic servant ! A break-down in the 
stomach, and then you are in chains for 
life. To be obliged, is to be made the 
most of. I The fortunate, the powerful, 
profit by the moment when you stretch 
out the hand, to put a penny into it, and 
from that minute of your weakness to 
make you a slave, and a slave of the 
worst sort, a slave of charity, a slave 
compelled to love! What infamy! 
What indelicacy! What a surprise 
sprung upon your pride! And all is 
over; there you are, condemned for 
life to find this man good and that 
woman handsome, to remain a second- 
rate subaltern, to approve, to applaud, 
to admire, to offer incense, to bow your- 
self down, to garnish your kneepans 
with corns from kneeling, to sugar 
your words when you are devoured 
with rage, when you are stifling cries 
of fury, and when you have within you 
"jf wild upheaving and bitter 
n than the ocean.’i 


137 

It is thus that the rich make prison- 
ers of the poor. 

This glue of the good deed wrought 
upon you smears you, and throws you 
into the mire forever. 

An alms is without remedy. Grati- 
tude is equivalent to paralysis. A ben- 
efaction has a sticky adhesiveness, and 
cramps your free movements. These 
odious beings, opulent and sordid, 
whose pity has borne hard upon you, 
are aware of the fact. It is settled. 
You belong to them. They have 
bought you. For how much ? For a 
bone, that they have snatched back 
from their dog, to ofi’er it to you. They 
have thrown this bone at your head. 
You have been stoned as much as suc- 
cored. It is all the same. Have you 
gnawed the bone? yes or no? You 
also have your part in the dog’s 
scrap-box. Then, give thanks ! give 
thanks forever ! Adore your mas- 
ters ! Indefinite genuflection ! The 
benefit implies your acceptance of a 
recogilized inferiority. They require 
that you should feel yourself to be a 
poor devil, and that you should feel 
that they are gods. Your dwindling 
swells them up. Your bending down 
straightens them up. There is, in the 
very tone of their voice, a soft, but im- 
pertinent inflection. Their family af- 
fairs, their marriages, their baptisms, 
their women about to bo confined, the 
little ones that they have — these are 
your concern. Let a wolf’s cub be 
born to them ; well, you must compose 
a sonnet. You are poet, merely to be 
a rhymester. If this is not enough to 
make the stars tumble down ! A little 
more, and they would make you use 
their old shoes ! 

— What is it that you have there at 
home, my dear ? How ugly he is ! What 
in the world is that man? — I don’t 
know ; it’s a raw scribbler whom I sup- 
port. Thus do these geese discourse ; 
and without lowering their voices. 


138 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


You hear ; and you remain mechan- 
ically amiable. Beyond this, if you 
are ill, your masters send you a doctor. 
hTot their own. At need, they ask af- 
ter you. Not being of the same spe- 
cies as yourself, and being inaccessible 
when so it pleases them, they are affa- 
ble. Their escarpment makes them ap- 
proachable. They know that a plain 
footing is out of the question. By force 
of contempt, they are polite. At table, 
they make you a little sign of the head. 
Sometimes they know how to spell 
your name. They make you realize 
that they are your patrons, only by 
treading ingenuously upon all that 
is in you of susceptible and delicate. 
With what consideration they treat 
you! 

Is this sufficiently detestable ? 

Assuredly it was urgent that Josiane 
should be chastised. She must be 
taught with whom she had to do. Ah! 
my wealthy gentlemen — because you 
are unable to consume every thing ; be- 
cause opulence might end in indiges- 
tion, in view of the smallness of your 
stomachs, which are of the same size as 
ours, after all ; because it is better worth 
while to distribute the scraps than to 
lose them — you get up this porridge 
of leavings, and throw it, magnificently, 
to the poor! Ah ! you give us bread, 
you give us lodging, you give us clothes, 
you give us an office, and you push 
audacity, madness, cruelty, folly, and 
absurdity, to the extent of believing that 
we are your most obliged! This bread 
— ^it is the bread of servitude ; this lodg- 
ing — it is the valet’s garret ; these 
clothes — they are a livery; this office — 
it is a mockery, remunerated it may be, 
but brutalizing ! Ah ! you fancy that 
you have the right to blight us with 
your lodging and your nourishment; 
you imagine that we are your debtors ; 
and you reckon upon our gratitude! 
Well, then, we will eat you out of house 
and home! Well, then, we will rip out 


your entrails, fair dame; and we will 
devour you all alive ; and we will 
sunder your heartstrings with our 
teeth ! 

This Josiane! Was it not outra- 
geous? What merit did she possess? 
She had accomplished the master-strokex 
of coming into the world — a witness to | 
her father’s folly and her mother’s / 
shame. She did us the honor to exist. ' 
And this complaisance on her part, in 
being a public scandal, was rewarded 
with millions ; she had estates and 
country-seats, warrens, preserves, lakes, 
forests — what all do I know? And, 
with that, she played the fool, and had 
verses addressed to her, while he, Bar- 
kilphedro, wffio had studied and w’orked, 
who had taken pains, who had stuffed 
his eyes and his brains with big books, 
who had matured in old treatises and 
in science, who had an immensity of 
intelligence, who could command ar- 
mies with success, who could write, if 
he pleased, such tragedies as Otway’s 
and Dryden’s, he, who was made to 
be an emperor, he had been reduced 
to permitting this nothing at all to 
save him from dying of hunger. Can 
the usurpation of the rich, those exe- 
crable elect of chance, be carried fur- 
ther, making pretence to bo generous 
with us, and to protect us, and to smile 
on us — us who would drink their blood, 
and would lick our lips afterward? 
That the low ' woman of the court 
should have the odious ability to be a 
benefactress, and that the superior man 
should be condemned to pick up such 
leavings fallen from such a hand — what 
could be more frightfully iniquitous? 
And what a society must it be, that 
has, to this extent, a basis of dispro- 
portion and injustice! Is not this a 
case of seizing every thing by the four 
corners, and of tossing up pell-mell to 
the ceiling the table-cloth, and the 
banquet, and the orgy, and the tip- 
pling, and the drunkenness, and the 


FLAMINGS, ETC. 


guests, and those who are leaning their 
two elbows on the table, and those who 
are on all fours underneath it, and the 
insolent who give, and the idiots who 
accept, and of spitting hack every 
thing to the nose of the Deity, and of 
pitching the whole earth at heaven? 
In the mean while, let us dig our claws 
into Josiane. 

Thus dreamed Barkilphedro. These 
were tlie hellowings of his inner soul. 
It is the practice of the envious man to 
absolve himself, by amalgamating with 
his own personal grievance the public 
ill. All the savage forms of malevolent 
passion came and went in this fierce 
intelligence. At the corner of old maps 
of the world, of the fifteenth century, 
may he noted a large, blank space, 
without form and without name, where- 
on these three words are inscribed: 
Hie sunt leones. This sombre corner 
has existence also in man. The pas- 
sions prowl round and mutter, some- 
where within us ; and it may he said 
also of one dark spot in our souls : 
“ Here are lions.” 

This scaffolding of fallow reasonings, 
was it absolutely absurd? Was it 
wanting in a certain judgment? It 
must he owned, not. 

It is fearful to think that this some- 
thing within us, the judgment, is not 
justice. Tlie judgment is the relative. 
Justice is the unreasoning. Kefiect on 
the difference between a judge and a 
just man. 

Evil-doers abuse the conscience, with 
authority. The false has its gymnas- 
tics. A sophist is a forger; and, on 
occasion, this forger brutalizes common 
sense. A certain logic, very supple, 
very implacable, and very nimble, is 
at the service of evil, and excels in 
stabbing truth in the ' dark. These 
blows are sinister fisticuffs of Satan 
against God I 

Such a sophist, admired by simple- 
tons, has no other glory, than that of 


139 

having given an occasional pinch to the 
human conscience. 

The trouble was, that Barkilphedro 
foresaw a miscarriage. He was under- 
taking a vast labor, and he feared, at 
least, that not enough scath would 
come out of it. To he a man of corro- 
sive disposition, to have in one’s self a 
will of steel, a diamond hate, an ardent 
longing for the catastrophe, and to 
burn nothing, to decapitate nothing, to 
exterminate nothing ! To be what he 
was, a devastating power, a voracious 
animosity, a gnawer of others’ happi- 
ness ; to have been created — ^for there is 
a creator, the devil or God, no matter 
which — to have been created in all 
particulars Barkilphedro, and only, per- 
haps, to realize a fillip ; is this possi- 
ble ? Barkilphedro to miss his stroke ! 
To be a machine for launching forth 
fragments of rock, and to expend all his 
expulsive force in raising a bump on 
the forehead of a conceited w'oman! 
A catapult causing only the havoc of a 
pair ^f shears! Aecomplish the task 
of Sisyphus for the result of an ant ! 
Sweat out all hate, for next to nothing ! 
Is this sufficiently humiliating, when 
one is in one’s self a hostile mechanism, 
capable of pulverizing the world ? Put 
in movement all one’s gear, give rise, 
in the background, to the hubbub of 
the machinery of Marly, to succeed, 
perhaps, in pinching the tip of a little 
rose-colored finger ! He was about to 
turn over and over huge blocks, just to 
wrinkle a little the flattened surface of 
the court I Heaven has this mania for 
expending power on a grand scale. 
This upheaval of a mountain results in 
displacing a molehill. 

Besides, given the court, a queer 
place for action, nothing is more dan- 
gerous than to take aim at one’s enemy, 
and miss him. In the first place, this 
unmasks you to your enemy, and this 
is irritating; in the next place and 
above all, this is displeasing to the mas- 


140 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


ter. Kings have small relish for clum- 
sy fellows. No contusions; no ugly 
fisticuffing! Cut every one’s throat; 
but don’t make any one’s nose bleed ! 
Who kills is a proficient ; who wounds 
is a ninny. Kings don’t like to have 
their servants lamed. They owe you a 
grudge, if you fracture a bit of porce- 
lain on their mantel-piece, or a courtier 
in their train. The court ought to re- 
main unstained. Break, and replace. 
That’s well enough. 

This also agrees perfectly with the 
taste for backbiting, common to princes. 
Speak ill; don’t do “ill ! Or if you do 
it, let it be on a large scale ! 

Stab, but dont scratch! — unless the 
pin be poisoned. An extenuating cir- 
cumstance. This, let it be recalled, 
was the case with Barkilphedro. 

Every pigmy charged with hate is 
the phial, wherein was enclosed the 
dragon of Solomon. Microscopic phial, 
immeasurable dragon ! Formidable con- 
densation, awaiting the gigantic hour 
of release ! W earisomeness consoled by 
thought of the pending explosion ! 
What is contained is larger than that 
which contains it. A latent giant, how 
strange a thing ! A tick w’-herein there 
is a hydra! To be this fearful spring- 
box, to hold Leviathan within one, 
this, for the dwarf, is at once a torment 
and a delight. 

Nothing, moreover, would have in- 
duced Barkilphedro to loose his hold. 
He awaited his hour. W ould it come ? 
What matter ? — ^he awaited it ! When 
one is far gone in evil, self-love comes 
into play. It is interesting to sap and 
mine a court-fortune above ourselves, 
and to do it at all risks and perils, how- 
ever deep-seated and close-hidden it 
may be. One becomes impassioned 
over such a game. One comes to dot- 
ing on it, as on an epic poem that 
one is composing. To be very 
small, and to attack some one very 
great, is a brilliant affair. There is 


something fine in being a flea upon a 
lion. 

The proud beast feels itself stung, 
and dispenses its prodigious anger upbn 
the atom. Meeting a tiger would 
trouble him less. And note how the 
parts are changed! The humiliated 
lion has in his flesh the insect’s sting; 
and the flea may say: “I have in me 
the blood of the lion ! ” 

However, this would but half ap- 
pease the pride of Barkilphedro. Con- 
solations. Palliatives. T o tease is some- 
thing; to torture is more desirable. 
Barkilphedro — unpleasant idea, that 
continually recurred to him — would, 
probably, have no other success, than 
to inflict a pitiful scratch upon Josiane’s 
epidermis. What could he hope for 
more, he so low, and she so radiant? 
A scratch, what a trifle is it to him 
who craves all the purple hue of a 
flaying alive, and the screechings of 
the woman worse than naked — ^having 
no longer that chemise, her skin ! With 
such longings, how grievous is it to be 
impotent ! Alas ! there is nothing per- 
fect! 

In short, he became resigned. Un- 
able to do more, he dreamed only the 
half of his dream. After all, it was an 
object to accomplish a sombre farce. 

What a man is he, who takes revenge 
for a benefit done him ! Barkilphedro 
was this colossus. For the most part, 
ingratitude i^ but forgetfulness ; for the 
high graduates in evil, it partakes of 
fury. The ungrateful clown is full of 
ashes. With what was Barkilphedro 
filled up? With a furnace — furnace 
walled in, of hate, of anger, of silence, 
of spite, awaiting Josiane for fuel. 
Never had a man so abhorred a woman, 
without grounds for it. How terrible a 
fact! She was his sleeplessness, his 
preoccupation, his wearisomeness, his 
rage. 

Possibly, he was somewhat in love 
with her. 


BAEKILPHEDEO IN AMBUSH. 


XI. 

BAEKILPHEDEO IN AMBUSH. 

To find the vulnerable point of Jo- 
siane and strike her there, such was, 
for the several reasons we have just 
given, the unshaken purpose of Barkil- 
phedro. 

The intention was not sufficient; 
it was necessary to find out the way. 

What method was to he taken ? 

This was the questien. 

Vulgar vagabonds very carefully lay 
out the programme of the villainy they 
desire to commit. They do not feel 
strong enough • to seize the passing in- 
cident, take possession of it by will or 
by force, and constrain it to their service. 
Hence the preliminary combinations 
that deep rogues disdain. Deep 
rogues take all their villainy a priori ; 
they content themselves with anning 
at all points, prepare various weapons 
for various cases, and, like Barkilphe- 
dro, simply watch for the opportunity. 
Tliey know that any plan constructed 
in anticipation runs the risk of dove- 
tailing badly into the circumstances 
that will present themselves. In that 
way one does not become master of 
what may be the situation, and make 
of it what one wishes. There is no 
such thing as holding a preliminary 
parley with destiny. To-morrow does 
not obey us. Fortune shows a certain 
disregard of discipline. 

So they watch the chance of chal- 
lenging her cooperation without pre- 
amble, without authority, and on the 
spot. Ho plan, no diagram, no geo- 
metrical outline, no ready-made shoe 
badly fitting the unexpected. They dive 
head foremost into crime. The turn- 
ing to immediate and rapid account 
whatever incident may assist him, this 
is the cleverness that distinguishes the 
villain of ability, and lifts the rogue to 


141 

' the dignity of a demon. To bully for- 
tune, this is genius. 

The true villain strikes you as from 
a sling, with the first pebble that comes 
to hand. 

Capable scoundrels count on the 
unforeseen, that stupefied accomplice 
in so many crimes. 

To seize hold of an incident, to leap 
upon it — there is no art other than 
this. Art poetic for this kind of tal- 
ent. 

And, meantime, to know whom one 
has to deal with. To examine the 
ground. 

Barkilphedro’s ground was Queen 
Anne. 

Barkilphedro was getting nearer to 
the queen. 

So near, that, sometimes, he fancied 
he heard her majesty’s soliloquies. 

Sometimes he took part, unheeded, 
in the conversations of the two sisters. 
It was not forbidden him to slip in a 
word. He took advantage of this to 
make liimself of little account. Mode 
of inspiring confidence. 

Thus it was that one day at Hamp- 
ton Court, in the garden, being behind 
the duchess, who was behind the 
queen, he heard Anne,' conforming 
awkwardly to the fashion, let fall some 
apothegms. 

— The brutes are happy, said the 
queen ; they are in no danger of going 
to hell. 

— They are there, replied Josiane. 

This reply, which rudely put philos- 
ophy in the place of religion, was 
displeasing. If by chance it had 
been profound, Anne would have felt 
shocked. 

— My dear, said she to Josiane, we 
talk of hell like two idiots. Let us ask 
Barkilphedro what is there. He ought 
to know these things. 

— As a devil ? asked J osiane. 

— Asa brute, replied Barkilphedro. 
And he bowed. 


142 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


— Madam, said the queen to Josi- 
ane, he has more wit than we have. 

"With a man like Barkilphedro, to get 
near the queen was to get a hold upon 
her. He could say, I have her. Mean- 
w'hile it was necessary to discover the 
way of turning it to account. 

He had a footing at court. It was 
a fine thing to have a point of observa- 
tion. Ho opportunity could escape 
him. More than once he had drawn a 
smile from the queen, that betrayed 
her. It was like having a license for 
shooting. 

But were there no royal preserves ? 
This license for shooting, did it extend 
to breaking a wing or a paw of such a 
creature as the own sister of her Ma- 
jesty? 

First point to be cleared up. Did 
the queen love her sister ? 

A blunder might lose all. Barkil- 
phedro watched. 

Before commencing the game, the 
player looks at his cards ; what trumps 
has he ? Barkilphedro began by con- 
sidering the ages of the two women. 
Josiane, twenty-three years; Anne, 
forty-one years. This was well. He 
had his cue. 

The moment when a woman ceases 
to count her springs, and '^begins to 
count her winters, is trying to the 
temper. Impotent rancor against 
time w-hich one has in one’s self. The 
blooming young beauties, fragrance to 
others, are thorns to you, and every 
rose gives you a' prick. You fancy 
that all this freshness is taken from 
you, and that loveliness dwindles in 
yourselves because it increases in others. 

To w'ork this secret ill-humor, to 
deepen the wrinkles of a woman of 
forty who is queen, this was evidently 
Barkilphedro’s policy. 

Envy surpasses in exciting jealousy, 
as a rat in bringing out a crocodile. 

Barkilphedro fixed upon Queen Anne 
his masterly attention. 


He saw into the queen as one sees 
into stagnation. The marsh has its 
transparency. In dirty water one sees 
vices ; in troubled water one sees 
follies. Anne was only troubled wa- 
ter. 

Thoughts in embryo and ideas in 
larva moved about in that fatuous 
brain. 

They were somewhat indistinct. They 
hardly had outlines. They were real- 
ities, nevertheless, though unformed. 
The queen imagined this. The queen 
desired that. Precisely what, it was 
difficult to determine. The confused 
transformations that take place in stag- 
nant water are not easy to study. 

The queen, habitually dull, had at 
times her sallies, stupid and abrupt as 
these were. It was in these that it 
was necessary to seize her. She should 
be taken in the act. 

Did Queen Anne, in her heart, wish 
well or ill to the Duchess J osiane ? 

Problem. Barkilphedro proposed it 
to himself. 

This problem solved, one might go 
further. 

Several accidents served Barkilphe- 
dro. And especially his closeness of 
watch. 

Anne was, on her husband’s side, 
distantly related to the new Queen of 
Prussia, wife of a king of a hundred 
chamberlains, of whom she possessed 
a portrait painted in enamel after the 
process of Turquet of Mayence. This 
Queen of Prussia had, herself also, a 
younger illegitimate sister, the Baroness 
Drika. 

One day, Barkilphedro being pres- 
ent, Anne asked the Prussian ambassa- , 
dor some questions about this Drika. i 

— They say she is rich ? 

— Very rich, replied the ambassa- ■ 
dor. j 

— Has she palaces ? j 

— More magnificent ones than those f 

of the queen her sister. 


SCOTLAND, lEELAND, AND ENGLAND. 


143 


— Who is to marry her? 

— A very great . personage, the Count 
Gormo. 

— Is he good-looking ? 

— Charming. 

— Is she young ? 

— Quite young. 

— As handsome as the queen ? 

The ambassador lowered his voice 
and answered, 

— Handsomer. 

— What an impertinent ! murmured 
Barkilphedro. 

The queen, after a short silence, ex- 
claimed:: 

— These bastards ! 

Barkilphedro made a note of this 
plural. 

At another time, in going out of the 
chapel where Barkilphedro had been 
in attendance near the queen’s person, 
behind the two grooms of the almoner. 
Lord David Dirry-Moir, crossing be- 
fore some rows of women, created a 
sensation by his fine appearance. As 
he moved along, there broke out an 
applause of feminine voices — How 
elegant he is! — What a fine fellow! — 
What a noble air he has ! — How hand- 
some he is ! 

— How disagreeable all this is ! 
grumbled the queen. 

Barkilphedro heard. 

He had made up his mind. 

One might injure the duchess, with- 
out offending the queen. 

The first problem was solved. 

But the second presented itself. 

How should this mischief to the 
duchess be done ? 

What resource did his wretched em- 
ployment afford him for an end so diffi- 
cult? 

Kone, undeniably. 


XII. 

SCOTLAND, lEELAND, iND ENGLAND. 

Let us note one little circumstance : 
Josiane “had the turning-box.” ' 

This will bo understood upon reflect- 
ing that she was, although in a left- 
handed way, sister of the queen, that 
is to say, a princely person. 

“To have the turning-box.” What 
is that ? 

The Viscount St. John — say Boling- 
broke — wrote to Thomas Leonard, Earl 
of Sussex: “Two things constitute 
greatness — in England, to have the 
turning-box; in France, to have the 
Fory 

The For in France was this. When 
the king travelled, the forerunner of 
the court, every evening, at the rest- 
ing-places on the way, assigned their 
lodgings to the persons in attendance 
on his Majesty. Among these people, 
some 'enjoyed an immense privilege. 
“ They had the says the Histori- 
cal Journal for the year 1694, page 6, 
“that is to say, the forerunner who as- 
signed these lodgings put For before 
the name, as Foe the Prince of Soulise ; 
instead of which, when he set apart 
the lodging of one who was not a 
prince, he did not put the For^ but 
simply the name; for example: The 
Huhe of Gesvres^ The Duke of Kazarin^ 
etc.” This For over a door indicated 
a prince, or a favorite. Favorite was 
worse than prince. The king accorded 
the For^ as he did the Blue Ribbon or 
the peerage. 

“ To have the turning-box ” in Eng- 
land was less flattering to one’s vanity, 
but of more importance. It indicated 
the actual coming in contact with the 
person of the reigning sovereign. Who- 
ever was, by birth or favor, in a posi- 
tion to receive communications direct 
from majesty, had on the wall of his 


144 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


or her bedroom a turning - box to 
which was attached a bell. The bell 
sounded, the box opened, a royal letter 
appeared on a gold plate or velvet 
cushion, then the box closed again. 
This was secret and solemn. The 
mysterious in the familiar. The turn- 
ing-box served no other purpose. Its 
bell -ringing announced a royal mes- 
sage. One did not see who brought 
it. After all, it was only the king’s or 
the queen’s page. Leicester “ had the 
turning - box ” under Elizabeth, and 
Buckingham under James I. Josiane 
had it under Anne, although little of 
a favorite. 

It was not an enviable distinction. 
The privilege involved greater servili- 
ty. One was by'it a little more of- a 
valet. At court, promotion is degrada- 
tion. “ Avoir le tour ” — they employed 
the words in French ; this 'detail of 
English etiquette being probably an 
old French absurdity. 

Lady Josiane, a virgin peeress, as 
Elizabeth was a virgin queen, led, 
sometimes in town, sometimes in the 
country, according to season, a semi- 
princely life, and held almost a court, 
at which Lord David was a courtier, 
with many others. Not being yet mar- 
ried, Lord David and Lady Josiane 
might without ridicule show them- 
selves in public together, as they did 
freely. They frequently went to the 
play and to the races in the same car- 
riage, and occupied the same box. The 
marriage, which had been permitted 
them, and even enjoined upon them, 
chilled them. But on the whole, the 
charm was in seeing each other. The 
familiarities permitted to engaged 
couples have a boundary that is easily 
passed. They held back from it — what 
is easy being in bad taste. 

The bravest boxing-matches of that 
time took place at Lambeth, the parish 
in which the Lord Archbishop of Can- 
terbury has a palace, albeit the air there 


is noxious, and where a fine library is 
open at certain hours to honest people. 
Once, it was in winter, there was held 
there, in a meadow fenced in and 
locked with a key, a mill between two 
men, at which Josiane was present, 
escorted by David. She had asked him : 
Are women admitted ? David had an- 
swered, Sunt fceminm magnates. Free 
translation, No common ‘people. Literal 
translation. There are great ladies. A 
duchess goes everywhere. Thus Lady 
Josiane saw the boxing-match. 

Lady Josiane made only one conces- 
sion, that of dressing herself in men’s 
clothes, a thing then very much in 
vogue. Women travelled but little 
otherwise. Of the six passengers that 
filled the Windsor coach, it was rare 
that there were not one or two women 
dressed as men. It was the mark of 
the gentry. 

Lord David, being in the company 
of a lady, could not appear in the 
match, and was fain to remain a mere 
spectator. 

Lady Josiane betrayed her rank only 
in this, that she used a lorgnette, which 
was the habit of the gentlemen. 

The “noble rencontre ” was presided 
over by Lord Germaine, great-grand- 
father or great-uncle of that Lord 
Germaine who, about the end of the 
eighteenth century, was colonel, turned 
tail in a battle, was afterward minister 
of war, and^escaped the canister-shot 
of the enemy only to fall under the 
epigrams of Sheridan, a worse grape- 
shot. Several gentlemen laid wagers — 
Harry Belle w, of Carleton, who had 
claims to the extinct peerage of Bella 
Aqua, against Henry, Lord Hyde, mem- 
ber of Parliament for the borough of 
Dunhivid, which was also called Laun- 
ceston ; the Honorable Peregrine Bertie, 
member for the borough of Truro, 
against Sir Thomas Colepeper, member 
for Maidstone ; the Laird of Lamyrban, 
of the marches of Lothian, against Sam- 


SCOTLAND, lEELAND, AND ENGLAND. 


145 


nel Trefusis, of tlie borough of Penryn ; 
Sir Bartholomew Gracedieu, of the bor- 
ough of St. Ives, against the Eight Hon- 
orable Charles Bodville, Lord Eobartes, 
Keeper of the Eolls of the county of 
Cornwall. And others. 

The two boxers were an Irishman of 
Tipperary, called by the name of his 
native mountain, Phelem-ghe-Madone, 
and a Scotchman called Helmsgail. 
This brought together two sentiments 
of national pride. Ireland and Scotland 
were going to fight ; Erin was about to 
give the blow to Gajothel. So the bets 
exceeded forty thousand guineas, with- 
out counting the stakes. 

The two champions were naked, with 
very short ' breeches buckled around 
their hips, and boots with nailed soles 
laced to the ankles. 

Helmsgail, the Scotchman, was a lit- 
tle Mlow, hardly nineteen, but he had 
already had his forehead sewed up ; it 
was for this reason that the odds were 
two and a third in his favor. The 
month before he had smashed in the 
ribs and put out both eyes of the boxer 
Sixmileswater, which accounted for 
the enthusiasm. He had won for his 
backers twelve thousand pounds ster- 
ling. Besides his forehead sewed up, 
Helmsgail had a broken jaw. He was 
light and active. He was about the 
height of a small woman, thick set, well 
knit, of a stature low and menacing, 
and nothing had been wasted of the 
clay of which he was made ; not a mus- 
cle but went to the mark — ^the pugilist. 

There was compactness in his solid 
trunk — glossy and brown like brass. 
He smiled, and three teeth that he had 
lost gave point to his smile. 

His antagonist was enormous; that 
is to say, weak. 

He was a man of forty. He was six 
feet high, with the chest of a hippo- 
potamus, and a pleasant expression. 
His blow would have split a ship’s 
deck, but he did not know how to de- 
10 


liver it. The Irishman, Phelem-ghe- 
Madone, was all surface, and appeared 
to take part in boxing-matches rather 
to receive blows than to give them. 
Only he looked as if he might hold out 
a long time. A sort of under-done 
roast-beef, hard to bite, and impossible 
to digest. He was what they called in 
the local slang raw flesh. He squinted. 
He seemed resigned. 

These two men had passed the pre- 
ceding night side by side, in the same 
bed, sleeping together. They had 
drunk, from the same glass, each three 
fingers of port-wine. 

Each of them had his group of back- 
ers, men of rough aspect, and threaten- 
ing a need of umpires. In Helmsgail’s 
group might be seen John Gromane, 
famous for having carried a steer on 
his back, and John Bray, who had 
borne on his shoulders ten bushels of 
flour, of fifteen gallons to the bushel, 
besides the miller, and had walked with 
this burden a distance of more than two 
hundred yards. On the side of Phe- 
lem-ghe-Madone, Lord Hyde had 
brought from Launceston a certain Kil- 
ter, who lived at Greencastle, and 
threw over his shoulder a stone, weigh- 
ing twenty pounds, higher than the 
highest turret of the chateau. These 
three men. Kilter, Bray, and Gromane, 
were of Cornwall, which was an honor 
to the county. 

The other backers were roughs, 
strong - backed, bandy - legged, with 
large, knotty hands, of vacant coun- 
tenances, in rags, and fearing nothing, 
being nearly all outlawed. 

Many were admirably sljilful in mak- 
ing the police drunk. Each profession 
should have its talents. 

The spot chosen was beyond the 
Bear-Garden, where formerly there 
had been bear-fights, bull-fights, and 
dog-fights, on the other side of the last 
houses in course of building, adjoining 
the ruined priory of St. Mary Overy, 


14G 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


dismantled by Henry VIII. The wind 
was north, and the weather frosty ; a 
fine rain fell, rapidly congealing into 
sleet. The fathers of families who were 
present were recognized by their rais- 
ing their nmbrellas. 

On the side of Phelem-ghe-Madone, 
Colonel Monterif, umpire, and Kilter, 
bottle-holder. 

On the side of Helmsgail, the Hon- 
'Orable Pughe Beaumaris, umpire, and 
Lord Desertum of Kilcarry, bottle- 
holder. 

The two boxers were for some mo- 
ments at rest in the enclosure, while 
the seconds compared watches. Then 
they walked up to each other, and 
shook hands. 

Phelem-ghe-Madone said to Helms- 
gail, “ I had much rather be going home.” 

Helmsgail replied, courteously, “ The 
gentry should not disgrace themselves 
for nothing.” 

In their state of nakedness, they were 
cold. Phelem - ghe - Madone shivered. 
His jaws clattered. 

Doctor Eleanor Sharp, nephew of the 
Archbishop of York, cried out, “Pitch in, 
my fine fellows I It will warm you up.” 

This little civility thawed them out. 

They struck out at each other. 

But neither the one nor the other 
was in anger. They counted three in- 
effectual rounds.* The Eeverend Doc- 
tor Grumdraith, one of the Forty Fel- 
lows of All Souls, exclaimed, “Pour 
some gin into them ! ” 

But the two referees and the two 
seconds — all four experts — decided that 
the rule must be maintained. Never- 
theless, it was very cold. Then the 
cry was heard. First 'blood ! The first 
blood had been drawn. The combatants 
were again brought face to face. 

They looked at each other, approached 
each other, stretched out their arms, 
touched fists, then drew back. AU at 
once, Helmsgail, the little man, gave a 
bound. 


The fight began in earnest. 

Phelem-ghe-Madone was hit in the 
forehead, directly between the eye- 
brows. His whole face ran down with 
blood. The crowd cried out, Eedms- 
gail has tapped his cloA'et ! They ap- 
plauded. Phelem-ghe-Madone, whirl- 
ing his arms as a windmill its sails, 
began to throw his fists about at random. 

The Honorable Peregrine Bertie said : 
Blinded. But he was not yet blind. 

Then Helmsgail heard on all sides this 
cry of encouragement. Bung his peepers ! 

Indeed, the two champions had been 
well chosen, and, although the weather 
was not very favorable, it was pretty 
certain that the match would be a suc- 
cess. The quasi-giant Phelem-ghe-Ma- 
done had the drawbacks of his superior- 
ity ; he moved heavily. His arms were 
clubs, but his body was a lump. The lit- 
tle fellow ran, struck out, leaped about, 
gnashed his teeth, doubled his strength 
by his alertness, was up to all the tricks 
of the ring. On one side there was the 
primitive fisticuff, savage, untaught, ig- 
norant; on the other, the fisticuff of 
civilization. Helmsgail fought as much 
with his nerves as with his muscles, 
and with his cunning as with his 
strength. Phelem-ghe-Madone was a 
sort of inactive shoulder-hitter, some- 
what punished at the beginning. It 
was art against nature. It was ferocity 
against barbarism. 

It was clear that the barbarian would 
be beaten. But not immediately. Hence 
the interest. 

A little one against a big one. The 
odds are in favor of the little one. A 
cat has the better of the dog. The Go- 
liaths are always vanquished by the 
Davids. 

A hail of outcries fell upon the 
combatants — Braro^ Helmsgail ! good ! 
well done^ Highlander ! — Now^ Phelem ! 

Helmsgail’s friends kindly repeated 
their bit of advice — Bung his peepers ! 

Helmsgail did better. Suddenly fall- 


SCOTLAND, lEELAND, AND ENGLAND. 


ing, and, rising again with the wriggle 
of a reptile, he struck Phelem-ghe- 
Madone on the sternum. The colossus 
staggered. 

— Foul blow! cried Viscount Bar- 
nard. 

Phelem-ghe-Madone sank down on 
Kilter’s knee, saying — I begin to warm 
up. 

Lord Desertum ^consulted the ref- 
erees, and said: 

— There will he five minutes’ inter- 
mission. 

Phelem-ghe-Madone fainted away. 
Kilter wiped, with a hit of flannel, the 
blood from his eyes and the sweat from 
his body, and put a bottle to his lips. 
It was the eleventh round. Phelem- 
ghe-Madone, besides the wound on his 
forehead, had his breast beaten in, his 
stomach swollen, and the crown of his 
head contused. Helmsgail had not a 
scratch. 

A little noisy talk broke out among 
the gentlemen. 

Lord Barnard repeated. Foul blow. 

— Ko bet, said the Laird of Lamyr- 
ban. 

-L-I claim my stakes, said Sir Thomas 
Colepeper. 

And the honorable member for the 
borough of St. Ives, Sir Bartholomew 
Gracedieu, added: 

— Let them give me my five hundred 
guineas ; I will go. 

— Stop the match, cried the specta- 
tors. 

But Phelem-ghe-Madone raised him- 
self up almost as staggeringly as a 
drunken man, and said : 

— Let us go on with the match, on 
one condition. I shall have also the 
right of giving a foul blow. - 

On all sides they cried out : 

— Agreed. 

Helmsgail shrugged his shoulders. 

The five minutes over, the round be- 
gan. 

The fight, which was an agony for 


. 147 

Phelem-ghe-Madone, was a pastime for 
Helmsgail. 

"What a thing is science ! The little 
one contrived to get the giant in chan- 
cery, that is to say, all of a sudden, 
Helmsgail caught under his left arm, 
which was bent like a pruning-hook, 
Phelem - ghe - Madone’s big head and 
held it there under his arm-pit, the 
neck doubled up and the nape down, 
while, with his right fist, falling and 
falling again, like a hammer upon a nail, 
but on top and from below, he beat in 
the features at his ease. When Phe- 
lem-ghe-Madone, released at last, raised 
his head, he had no longer any features 
at all. 

What had been a nose, eyes, and a 
mouth, had the appearance only of a 
black sponge soaked in blood. He spat 
out four teeth upon the ground. 

Then he fell. Kilter received him 
on his knee. 

Helmsgail was scarcely hurt at all. 
He had some trifling bruises and a 
scratcn on the collar-bone. 

Kobody was cold now. The odds 
were sixteen and a quarter upon 
Helmsgail against Phelem - ghe - Ma- 
done. 

— Take your mufiler, said Kilter to 
Phelem-ghe-Madone, and, cramming 
the bloody flannel rag into a bottle, he 
washed it with gin. Then he retouched 
his mouth, and Phelem-ghe-Madone 
opened one peeper. His temples 
seemed cracked. 

— Another round, friend, said Kil- 
ter. And he added — For the honor of 
the lower classes. 

The Welsh and Irish heard it. 
nevertheless, Phelem-ghe-Madone gave 
no sign that indicated the least intelli- 
gence. 

Phelem-ghe-Madone raised himself. 
Kilter helping him. It was the twen- 
ty-fifth round. After the manner of h 
Cyclop, for he had but one eye. He 
got into position. It was understood 


148 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


that this was the closing round, and 
nobody doubted that he had lost. He 
raised his guard above his chin, folly 
of a dying man. Helmsgail, scarcely 
sweating, cried out, 

— I back myself. A thousand to 
one! 

Helmsgail, raising his arm, struck a 
blow, and, what was strange, both fell 
together. A grunt of satisfaction was 
heard. 

It was Phelem-ghe-Madone that gave 
it. 

He had taken advantage of the terri- 
ble blow that Helmsgail had given him 
on the skull, to give him one, a foul 
blow, on the navel. 

Helmsgail, at .full length, rattled in 
the throat. 

The spectators saw Helmsgail on the 
ground, and said, 

— Paid off. 

Everybody clapped his hands, even 
the losers. 

Phelem-ghe-Madone had given foul 
blow for foul blow, and dealt after his 
right. 

They carried Helmsgail off in a 
wheel-barrow. The opinion was that 
he would not recover. Lord Eobartes 
cried out — I win twelve hundred guin- 
eas. Phelem-ghe-Madone had evident- 
ly been maimed for life. 

Going away, Josiane took Lord Da- 
vid’s arm, which is allowed to engaged 
people. She said to him, 

— This was very fine, but — 

— But what ? 

— I had supposed it would relieve 
my ennui. But it has not. 

Lord David stopped, looked at Jo- 
siane, closed his mouth, and puffed out 
his cheeks in shaking his head, which 
signifies, attention! and said to the 
duchess : 

— For ennui there is but one rem- 
edy. 

— "What ? 

— Gwynplaine. 


The duchess asked : 

— What is gwynplaine ? 


BOOK II. 

GWYNPLAINE AND DBA. 

1 . 

A SIGHT OF THE MAN’s FACE, WHOSE 
AOTIOI^'S ONLY HAVE BEEN SEEN 
HITHEETO. 

NTatuee had been prodigal in her gifts 
to Gwynplaine. She had given him a 
mouth stretching from ear to ear, ears 
coming forward upon his eyes, a shape- 
less nose adjusted for balancing the 
spectacles of a grimace-maker, and a 
countenance that you could not look at 
without laughing. 

We have said that Nature had show- 
ered her gifts upon Gwynplaine. But 
was it Nature? 

Had she not been aided ? 

A pair of eyes shining apparently 
with a borrowed light, a vacuum for a 
mouth, a snubbed protuberance with 
two holes that were nostrils, a squashed 
mass by way of face, and all this pro- 
ducing a joyous effect — ^it is certain that 
Nature, of herself, cannot produce such 
masterpieces. 

Only, are laughing and joy synon- 
ymous ? 

If, in presence of this buffoon — ^for a 
buffoon he was — you let your first hi- 
larious impression pass off, and ob- 
served the man closely, you would rec- 
ognize in him the trace of art. Such 
a phiz is not accidental, but designed. 
It is not in Nature to be perfect to this 
point. Man can add nothing to his 
beauty, but every thing to his ugliness. 
You can’t make a Eoman profile, out 
of a Hottentot profile; but out of a 
Greek nose you can make a Calmuck 
nose. It was not unadvisedly that the 


A SIGHT OF THE MAN’S FACE, ETC. 


149 


low Latin of the middle ages invented 
the verb denasare. In Gwynplaine’s 
childhood, had he been an object of so 
much attention, that some one was in- 
terested in him to the extent of modify- 
ing his visage? "Why not, were it only 
for purposes of exhibition and specula- 
tion? According to all appearance, 
certain laborious handlers of children 
had been working upon his counte- 
nance. It seemed evident that a mys- 
terious and probably hidden science, 
which bore to surgery the relations of 
alchemy to chemistry, had chiselled this 
flesh, certainly at a very early age, and 
made up, with premeditation, this phys- 
iognomy. This science — skilled in 
quarterings, in obtusions, and in lig- 
atures — ^had slit the mouth, sundered 
the lips, laid bare the gums, distended 
the ears, jumbled together the carti- 
lages, misshaped the eyebrows and the 
cheeks, enlarged the zygomatic muscle, 
smoothed over (as with a stomp in 
drawing) the seams and scars, brought 
back the skin over the lesions, while 
keeping the surface agape — and, from 
this valid and deep sculpturing, had 
come forth the mask, Gwynplaine. 

ITo one is born thus. 

At any rate, Gwynplaine was a per- 
fect success. Gwynplaine was a boon 
conferred by Providence upon the sad- 
ness of man. By what Providence? 
Is there a Demon Providence, as there 
is a God Providence? "We suggest the 
question, but do not attempt to an- 
swer it. 

Gwynplaine was a mountebank. He 
exhibited himself in public. Hone 
other could approach him, for effect. 
He cured hypochondriacs by simply 
showing himself. People in mourning 
kept out of his way, discomposed as 
they were and forced into indecent 
laughter, if they caught sight of him. 
One day, the executioner came, and 
Gwynplaine made him laugh. You 
saw Gwynplaine, and you held your 


sides; he spoke, and you held your 
sides; he spoke again, and you fell 
down in a fit of laughter. He was the 
antipodes of chagrin. Spleen was one 
extreme; Gwynplaine the other. 

Thus, at fairs and in public places, 
he had rapidly achieved the very desir- 
able renown of a man-monster. 

It was in laughing that Gwynplaine 
made others laugh. And, nevertheless, 
he did not laugh himself. His face 
laughed — not his fancy. The excep- 
tional sort of visage, that chance or a 
quaintly special calling had fashioned, 
was all that laughed. Gwynplaine had 
nothing to do with it. What was with- 
out was not dependent on what was 
within. This laugh — ^that he had not 
himself imprinted on his forehead, on 
his cheeks, on his eyebrows, on his 
mouth — he could not remove from 
them. An everlasting laugh had been 
stamped upon his countenance. It was 
a compulsory laugh, and so much the 
more irresistible, that it was petrified. 
Ho ohe could sneak away from this 
grin. Two movements of the mouth 
are catching — the laugh and the yawn. 
By virtue of the mysterious operation, 
probably undergone by Gwynplaine in 
childhood, every portion of his face 
contributed to this grin ; all his physi- 
ognomy tended thitherward, as the 
spokes of a wheel toward the hub ; all 
his emotions, of whatever kind, aug- 
mented — or, we should better say, ag- 
gravated — this uncouth semblance of 
gayety. A surprise coming upon him, 
a pain felt by him, anger taking hold 
of him, a sense of pity that he might 
have experienced, would but have in- 
creased this hilarity of the muscles. If 
he had cried, he would have laughed; 
and whatsoever Gwynplaine did, what- 
soever he desired, whatsoever he 
thought, so soon as he raised his head, 
the crowd, if crowd there were, had 
before its eyes this apparition — a con- 
vulsive burst of laughing. 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


W 

Figure to yourself a Medusa’s head — 
jocund! 

All that might be on the mind was 
put to rout by this unexpected air ; you 
must needs laugh. 

Ancient art was wont to display, 
upon the front of theatres, a face in 
brass, joyous. This face was called 
Comedy I The bronze seemed to 
laugh, and provoked laughter, and was 
pensive. All the caricature that leads 
up to madness, all the irony that leads 
up to wisdom, were condensed and 
amalgamated in this visage. The ag- 
gregate of cares, of disillusions, of dis- 
gusts, and of sorrows, stamped itself 
upon the impassible forehead, and gave 
forth that lugubrious total — ^mirth. One 
corner of the mouth was drawn up, on 
the human side, by mockery ; the other 
corner, on the divine side, by blas- 
phemy. Men confronted, in this model 
of ideal sarcasm, the ironical mirror 
that every one has within himself ; and 
the crowd, renewed unceasingly around 
this persistent laugh, was charmed with 
the sepulchral immobility of the giggle. 
Of this sombre dead mask of antique 
comedy, adjusted to a living man, it 
might almost be said that it was Gwyn- 
plaine. On his neck he bore the same 
infernal head of unpitying hilarity. — 
An eternal laugh — what a burden for 
the shoulders of a man ! 

An eternal laugh ! Let us understand 
each other, and explain. According to 
the Manichscans, the absolute yields et 
intervals, and Divinity itself is not with- 
out intermission. Let us be explicit, 
also, touching the will. "We do not ad- 
mit that it can ever be entirely pow,er- 
less. All existence resembles a letter, 
which the postscript modifies* For 
Gwynplaine the postscript was herein : 
by force of will, and in concentrating all 
his mind, and on condition that no emo- 
tion intervened to distract him and un- 
bend the fixity of his effort, he could 
succeed in suspending the eternal grin 


upon his face, and in throwing over it 
a sort of tragic veil. Then there was 
no more laughing before him ; men 
shuddered. 

Let us add that Gwjmplaine scarcely 
ever made this effort, for the fatigue of 
it was painful and the tension hard to 
bear. Besides, it was sufficient that 
there should be the least distraction 
or the least emotion, for the laugh — 
chased away for a moment — to reap- 
pear, irresistible as the tidal reflux, 
upon his face ; and so much the more 
intense was it, as the emotion had been 
powerful, be it what it might. 

With this restriction, Gwynplaine’s 
laugh was eternal. 

People saw G\^ynplaine ; they laugh- 
ed. When they had laughed, they turn- 
ed away their heads. The women, 
above all, were horror-struck. The 
man was frightful. The jocose convul- 
sion was, as it were, a tribute paid ; it 
was joyously undergone, but almost 
mechanically. After which — the laugh 
once chilled — it was intolerable for a 
woman to see Gwynplaine, impossible 
to study him. 

Beyond this, he was tall, well made, 
agile, and in no way deformed save in 
countenance. This was an indication, 
furthermore added to the presumption 
that there was to be seen, in Gwyn- 
plaine, rather a creation of art than a 
work off Nature. Gwynplaine, hand- 
some in figure, had probably been hand- 
some in face. At birth, he must have 
been like any other baby. They had 
kept the body intact, and had only 
touched up the face. 

Such, at least, was tl^ probability of 
the case. 

They had left him his teeth. The 
teeth are requisite in laughing. The 
death’s-head keeps them. 

The operation performed upon him 
must have been fearful. He had jio 
recollection of it, which was no proof 
that he had not undergone it. This 


DEA. 


151 


surgical sculpture could only succeed 
upon a child very young, and, in con- 
sequence, having little cognizance of 
what happened to it, and easily capable 
of mistaking a wound for a sore. Be- 
sides, in those days, be it remembered, 
means for putting the patient to sleep, 
and for suppressing pain, were known. 
Only, at that period, they were called 
magic. Nowadays they are called ances- 
thesia. 

In addition to this physiognomy, 
those who brought him up had pro- 
vided him with the accomplishments 
of the gymnast and the athlete. His 
joints, usefully dislocated, and adapted 
for bendings backward, had received 
the clown’s training, and could, like the 
hinges of a door, move themselves in 
either direction. In fitting him for the 
mountebank’s trade, nothing had been 
neglected. 

His hair had been dyed with ochre, 
once for all — a secret rediscovered in 
our own day. Pretty women use it 
now ; what disfigured in former times 
is now thought to embellish. Gwyn- 
plaine had yellow hair. This hair-dye, 
corrosive, apparently, had left it woolly 
and awry. These tawny bristles, more 
like a mane than a head of hair, cov- 
ered and hid a lofty skull, made for 
purposes of thought. The operation, 
such as it was, that had taken away all 
harmony from the countenance, and 
thrown all this flesh into disorder, had 
laid no hold upon the bony lid. Gwyn- 
plaine’s facial angle was surprisingly 
marked with power. Behind the laugh 
there was a soul, that dreamed, as we 
all dream. * 

For the rest, this laugh was, for 
Gwynplaine, a definite talent. He 
could not control it at all ; but he de- 
rived advantage from it. By means of 
this laugh he gained his livelihood. 

^^rwynplaine — as you have, without 
doubt, already ^perceived — was that 
cliiid abandoned, one winter’s evening. 


upon the coast of Portland, and shel- 
tered at Weymouth, in a poor hut upon 
wheels. 

II. 

DEA. 

The child was now a man. Fifteen 
years had slipped away. It was 1705. 
Gwynplaine was twenty-five. 

Ursus had kept with him the two 
children. This had constituted a nomad 
group. 

IJrsus and Homo had grown old. 
Ursus had become entirely bald. The 
wolf had become gray. The age of 
wolves is not determined like that of 
dogs. According to Molin, there are 
wolves that live eighty years: among 
others, the small Koupara, cmim wrus^ 
and the strong-smelling wolf, canis nu- 
bilus of Say. 

The little girl found upon the dead 
woman was now a tall personage of 
sixteen, pale, with brown hair, slight, 
frail, almost tremulous by reason of 
delicateness, and causing fear lest one 
should dismember her, beautiful ex- 
ceedingly, with eyes full of light, 
blind. 

The fatal winter’s night, that had 
cast down upon the snow the beggar- 
woman and her child, had dealt a dou- 
ble stroke. It had killed the mother 
and blinded the daughter. 

Amaurosis had forever paralyzed the 
eyeballs of this girl, in her turn be- 
come a woman. In her countenance, 
across which the light reached her not, 
the corners of the lips sorrowfully 
turned downward were expressive of 
this bitter disappointment. Her eyes, 
large and clear, were strange in this 
respect — quenched for herself, they 
were brilliant for others. Mysterious 
torches, illumining only what was 
without. She gave forth light, she 
who had it not. Those eyes, effaced. 


152 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


were resplendent. Captive of darkness, 
she whitened the gloomy circle around 
her. From the depth of her incurable 
eclipse, from behind the black wall that 
we term blindness, she jetted forth ra- 
diance. She saw not the sun outside 
of her ; and you could see, in her, her 
soul. 

Her dead look had a celestial intensi- 
ty, that is indescribable. 

She was the night ; and, from this 
remediless shade amalgamated with 
herself, she came out, a star. 

Ursus, crazy about Latin names, had 
christened her Dea. He had in some 
degree consulted his wolf. He had 
said to Homo — Y'ou represent man : I 
represent the beast. "We are the world 
below; this little one shall represent 
the world on high. Such weakness is 
omnipotence. In this fashion, the uni- 
verse complete, humanity, bestiality, 
divinity, wiU be in our hut. — The wolf 
had made no objection. 

And thus it was that the foundling 
was called Dea. 

As for Gwynplaine, Ursus had no 
trouble in inventing a name for him. 
On the very morning of the day, when he 
had ascertained the little boy’s disfig- 
urement and the little girl’s blindness, 
he had asked : — Boy, what’s your 
name? And the lad had replied, — 
They call me Gwynplaine. 

— Gywnplaine let it be ! Ursus had 
said. 

Dea assisted Gwynplaine in his ex- 
ercises. 

If human misery could be summed 
up, it might have been in Gwynplaine 
and Dea. They seemed to have been 
born, each in a compartment of the 
sepulchre ; Gwynplaine in the horrible, 
Dea in the obscure. There was for 
Gwynplaine, who could see, a harrow- 
ing possibility, that had no existence 
for Dea, being blind : that of comparing 
himself with other men. How, in a 
position like that of Gwynplaine — ad- 


mitting that he sought to take account 
of it — to compare himself was no 
longer to understand himself. To 
have, like Dea, a void look, whence 
the world is absent, is a supreme afflic- 
tion; less, however, than this: to be 
an enigma to one’s own self; to feel 
also that something is absent, which is 
one’s self ; to see the universe, and not 
to see one’s self. Dea had a veil — the 
darkness; Gwynplaine had a mask — 
his face. Circumstance unspeakable : 
it was with his own flesh that Gwyn- 
plaine was masked! "What his coun- 
tenance was, he knew not. His face 
was in a swoon. They had put upon 
him his mock self. For visage, he had 
a spiriting-away. The head lived, and 
the visage was dead. He did not re- 
member to have seen it. The human 
race, for Dea as for Gwynplaine, was a 
fact out of themselves; they were far 
from it. She was alone, he was alone ; 
the isolation of Dea was funereal — she 
saw nothing; the isolation of Gwyn- 
plaine was sinister — he saw every 
thing. For Dea, creation passed not 
the bounds of hearing and touch ; her 
real was narrow, limited, short, lost all 
at once ; her only infinite was darkness. 
For Gwynplaine, to live was to have 
the crowd forever before him, and for- 
ever beyond his reach. Dea was pro- 
scribed from light; Gwynplaine was 
banished from life. The two, unques- 
tionably, might abandon themselves 
over to despair. The depth of possible 
calamity was touched. They were in 
it, he and she alike. An observer, who 
had seen them, might have felt his mus- 
ing resolve itself into measureless pity. 
"What must they not suffer ? A decree 
of ill weighed visibly upon these two 
human creatures ; and never had fatali- 
ty better laid out a destiny of torture 
and a life of hell, for two beings who 
had nothing done. ^ 

They were in a paradise. HP 

They loved each other. 


OCULOS NON HABET, ET VIDET. 


153 


GwjTiplaine adored Dea. Dea idol- 
ized Gwynplaine. 

— You are so handsome ! said she to 
him. 

III. 

“ OCULOS ISTOX HABET, ET VIDET.” 

OxE single woman upon earth saw 
Gwynplaine. It was this blind one. 

What Gwynplaine had been for her, 
she knew from Ursus, to whom Gwyn- 
plaine had told the story of his rude 
march from Portland to Weymouth, 
and of the agonies mixed up with his 
abandonment. She knew that, when 
quite a little baby, dying upon a dead 
mother, sucking at a corpse, a being, 
only somewhat less small than herself, 
had picked her up; that this being, 
stricken out, and, as it were, buried 
under the gloom of universal rejection, 
had heard her cry ; that, all being deaf 
for him, he had not been deaf for her ; 
that this child, isolated, feeble, cast out, 
with nothing to lean upon, dragging 
himself through the desert, worn out 
with fatigue, broken down, had ac- 
cepted from the hands of night the 
burden of another child ; that he, who 
had nothing to expect in the dubious 
distribution that is termed fate, had 
charged himself with a destiny ; that, 
in destitution, in agony, in distress, he 
had constituted himself a providence ; 
that. Heaven closing itself, he had 
opened his heart ; that, being lost, he 
had saved; that, having nor roof nor 
shelter, he had been a refuge ; that he 
had made himself mother and nurse; 
that he, himself alone in the world, had 
replied to abandonment by an adop- 
tion ; that in darkness he had set this 
example ; that, not finding himself suf- 
ficiently weighed down, he had not ob- 
jected to another’s misery in addition ; 
th^upon this earth, whereon it seemed 
th^phere was nothing for him, he had 
fallen upon an object of duty; that 


there, where aU might have hesitated, 
he had gone forward ; that there, where 
all would have recoiled, he had con- 
sented ; that he had put his hand into 
the sepulchre’s mouth, and had drawn 
out her, Dea ; that, half naked, he had 
given his rags, because she was cold ; 
that, hungry, he had thought of making 
her drink and eat; that, for her so 
little, he, the little one, had combated 
death ; that he had combated it under 
every form, under the form of winter 
and snow, under the form of solitude, 
under the form of terror, under the 
form of cold and hunger and thirst, 
under the form of tempest; that for 
her, Dea, this Titan of ten years had 
waged battle with the immensity of 
night. She knew that he had done 
this, being a child, and that now, being 
a man, he was her strength for her who 
was weak, her wealth for her who was 
poor, her cure for her who was sick, 
her eye for her who was blind. Through 
the dense unknown, by which she felt 
herself iield at distance, she distinguished 
clearly this devotion, this self-sacrifice, 
this courage. Heroism, in the region 
of the immaterial, has a form. She 
caught this form sublime. She per- 
ceived the mysterious outlines of Vir- 
tue, within that inexpressible abstrac- 
tion where dwells the mind unillumined 
by the sun. Amid the surroundings 
of obscure objects set in motion, which 
was the only impression made upon her 
by reality — in that unquiet stagnation, 
of the passive creature ever watchful 
against possible peril — in that sensa- 
tion of being therein without defence, 
which is all the existence of the blind 
— she made out Gwynplaine above her, 
Gwynplaine never chilled, never ab- 
sent, never eclipsed ; Gwynplaine ten- 
der, helpful, gentle. Dea thrilled with 
this certainty and with gratitude. Her 
anxiety, reassured, tended to ecstasy ; 
and, from her eyes surcharged with 
shadows, she contemplated at the zenith 


154 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


of her abyss this goodness, as it were 
immeasurable light. 

In the ideal, goodness is the sun ; and 
Gwynplaine dazzled Dea. 

For the crowd — which has too many 
heads to have a thought, and too many 
eyes to have a look — for the crowd — 
which itself a surface, stops short at 
surfaces— Gwynplaine was a clown, a 
buffoon, a mountebank, a grotesque 
creature, a little more and a little less 
than an animal. The crowd knew 
nothing but his face. 

For Dea, Gwynplaine was the saviour 
who had picked her up in the tomb, 
and brought her out thence, the con- 
soler who had made existence possible 
for her, the liberator whose hand she 
felt in her own amid the labyrinth of 
darkness. Gwynplaine was the brother, 
the friend, the guide, the support, the 
semblance of one from above, the 
winged and radiant spouse. There, 
where the multitude saw a monster, 
she saw an archangel. 

The fact was, Dea, being blind, per- 
ceived his soul. 

IV. 

THE LOVEES PAIEED. 

Uesijs, philosopher, understood it. 
He approved of Dea’s fascination. 

He said : 

— The blind one sees the invisible. 

He said : 

— Conscience is sight. 

lie looked at Gwynplaine, and mut- 
tered to himself : 

— Half monster, but half god. 

Gwynplaine, on his part, was infatu- 
ated with Dea. There is the invisible 
eye, the mind ; and there is the visible 
eye, the eyeball. It was with the vis- 
ible eye that he saw her. Dea was 
dazzled through the ideal ; Gwyn- 
plaine, through the real. Gwynplaine 
was not ugly — ^he was hideous ; he had 


before him his contrast. By as much 
as he was terrible, by so much was Dea 
charming. He was horror; she was 
grace. There was something of fancy 
in Dea. She seemed to be a dream 
partially embodied. There was in all 
her person, in her .<Bolian cast, in her 
delicate and supple figure, tremulous as 
a reed, in her shoulders perchance in- 
visibly winged, in the discreet round- 
ing of the forms that indicated her 
sex — though rather to the spirit than 
to the senses — in her pallor which was 
almost a transparency, in the solemn 
and serene introspection of her look 
divinely closed against earth, in the 
hallowed innocence of her smile — an 
exquisite approach to the angelic, while 
she was none the less sufliciently a 
woman. 

Gwynplaine, as we have said, made 
comparisons, as regarded himself, and 
as regarded Dea. His existence, such 
as it was, was the result of a double 
and unwonted adoption. It was the 
intersecting point of two rays, one 
from below and one from above, one 
black, the other white. The same 
crumb perhaps, pecked at simultaneous- 
ly by the respective beaks of good and 
evil, the one bringing with it a bite, 
the other a kiss. Gwynplaine was this 
crumb, an atom bruised and caressed. 
Gwynplaine was the issue of a fatality 
mixed up with a providence. Misfor- 
tune had laid a finger on him, and good 
fortune also. Two widely sundered 
destinies had made up his wayward 
lot. Anathema and benediction were 
upon him. He was the accursed and the 
elect. "Who was he? He knew not. 
Looking at himself, he saw a stranger. 
But the stranger was a monstrosity. 
Gwynplaine lived in a state of decapi- 
tation, having a countenance that was 
not himself. This countenance was 
horrible, so horrible as to be amusiUig. 
It gave rise to so much fear, that it 
made one laugh. It was infernally 


THE LOVEES PAIEED. 


155 


ludicrous. It was the wreck of the 
human face in a bestial mask. Never 
had been seen upon the human visage 
a more total eclipse of man; never 
had parody been more perfect ; never 
had outline more squalid sneered in a 
nightmare; never had aU that could 
he repulsive to a woman been more 
hideously amalgamated in a man. The 
wretched heart, masked and calum- 
niated by the face, seemed forever 
doomed to solitude beneath the visage, 
as beneath the lid of a tomb. And 
yet, not so ! There, where some mys- 
terious malice had exhausted itself, in- 
visible beneficence in its turn had 
been lavish. In this poor down-fallen 
one, suddenly raised up, it inspired 
what is attractive, side by side with all 
that repels ; amid dangers it planted a 
loving nature ; it winged the flight of a 
soul toward the forsaken; it charged 
the dove to console the thunder- 
stricken; it caused deformity to be 
adored by beauty. 

For this to be possible, need was 
that the fair one saw not the disfigured 
one. For this blessing, this misfortune 
was requisite. Providence had made 
Dea blind. 

Vaguely did Gwynplaine perceive 
that he was the object of a redemp- 
tion. Wherefore the persecution ? He 
knew not. Wherefore the ransom ? He 
knew not. A halo of glory had come 
and settled itself aver the blight that 
was on him; this was all he knew. 

' Ursus, when Gwynplaine was old 
enough to understand it, had read and 
explained to him the text of Doctor 
Conquest De Denasatis^ and in another 
folio, Hugo Flagon^^ the passage nare^ 
habens mutilas; but Ursus had pru- 
dently abstained from conjectures, and 
had specially guarded himself against 
conclusions of any sort. Suppositions 
wei’e possible; the probability of vio- 
lence having been done to Gwynplaine’s 


infancy was glanced at ; but, for Gwyn- 
plaine, there was only one thing in 
evidence, the result. His fate, it was 
to live under a brand imprinted. Why 
this brand? There was no answer. 
Silence and solitude around Gwyn- 
plaine. All was shifting, in the con- 
jectures that could be brought to bear 
upon this tragic reality; and nothing, 
save the terrible fact, was certain. In 
this extremity, Dea intervened ; a sort 
of heavenly interposition between 
Gwynplaine and despair. Touched, 
and as it were rewarmed, he noted 
how the sweetness of this exquisite 
girl leaned toward his hideousness. A 
paradisiacal astonishment softened his 
Draconian face. Formed to appall, 
there was for him the marvellous ex- 
ception of being admired and wor- 
shipped by light in its ideal ; and, mon- 
ster himself, he felt that a star was 
contemplating him. 

Gwynplaine and Dea, they were a 
pair; and these two pathetic hearts 
adored iach other. One nest, and two 
birds ; there is their story. They had 
reentered into the universal law, which 
is to love, to seek, and to find. 

In such manner, that hate had made 
a mistake. The persecutors of Gwjm- 
plaine, whoever they were — the enig- 
matical implacableness, come whence 
it might — ^had missed their aim. They 
had desired to make a man abandoned 
to despair ; they had made one enrap- 
tured. They had aflianced him in ad- 
vance, to a grievous wound ; they had 
predestined him to be consoled by an 
aflBiiction. The executioner’s pincers 
had been softly transformed into a wo- 
man’s hand. Gwynplaine was horrible, 
artificially horrible, horrible by the 
hand of man. They had hoped to 
isolate him forever — from his family in 
the first place, if he had relations, and 
from humanity thereafter. A child, 
they had made of him a ruin ; but Na- 
ture had reclaimed this ruin, as she re- 


* Versio Gallica, Will. Tyris, lib. 2, chap. 23. 


156 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


claims all ruins ; Nature had consoled 
this solitude, as she consoles all soli- 
tudes. Nature comes to the rescue of 
all that is renounced. There, where all 
is wanting, she rehestows herself in 
whole ; she reflowers and covers again 
with verdure all that has fallen down ; 
she has ivy for stones, and love for 
men. 

Profound muniflcence of the shad- 
owy! 

V. 

THE BLUE IN THE BLACK. 

Thus, one by aid of the other, lived 
these hapless ones; Dea supported, 
Gwynplaine accepted. 

This orphan woman had this orphan 
man. This fragile one had this de- 
formed one. 

These widowhoods espoused each^ 
other. 

An ineffable thanksgiving grew out 
of these two afflictions. They thanked. 

Whom? 

The darksome Inflnitude. 

The mere act of acknowledgment 
sufflces. Thanksgiving has wings, and 
penetrates where it ought to penetrate. 
Your prayer goes further lengths than' 
you go. 

How many men have thought that 
they were praying to Jupiter, and have 
prayed to Jehovah! How many be- 
lievers in amulets have been heard 
by the Inflnite ! How many atheists 
fail to perceive that, by the sole fact of 
being good and sorrowful, they are 
praying to God ! 

Gwynplaine and Dea were grateful. 

Deformity is expulsion. Blindness 
is a precipice. The expulsion was 
adopted ; the precipice was habitable. 

Gwynplaine saw coming down to 
him in full light — in an ordering of 
destiny that resembled the setting 
forth of a dream — a white cloud of 
beauty in woman’s form, a radiant 


vision wherein was a heart; and this 
apparition, half cloud and woman not- 
withstanding, clasped him, and this 
vision embraced him, and this heart 
favored him. Gwynplaine, being loved, 
was no longer deformed. A rose asked 
a caterpillar in marriage, perceiving 
in this caterpillar the paragon butter- 
fly. Gwynplaine, the rejected one, 
was chosen. 

To have what is essential — ^that is 
everything. Gwynplaine had his ; Dea 
had hers. The abjectness of the dis- 
flgured one, alleviated and as it were 
made sublime, dilated itself in exalta- 
tion, in ecstasy, in faith. The sombre 
hesitation of The blind one in her 
darkness was met by an outstretched 
hand. 

It was the entry of two miseries into 
the ideal, this one absorbing that one. 
Two excluded ones gave each other 
admission. Two voids combined to 
All each other up. They laid hold of 
that which was wanting. Where one 
was poor, therein the other was rich. 
The misfortune of one made the other’s 
treasure. If Dea had not been blind, 
would she have chosen Gwynplaine? 
If Gwynplaine had not been disflgured, 
would he have preferred Dea? She 
would probably have liked deformity 
no better than he would have liked in- 
firmity. What happiness for Dea, that 
Gwynplaine was hideous ! What luck 
for Gwynplaine, that Dea was blind ! 
Outside of their providential watching 
each other, there was impossibility be- 
tween them. A prodigious need, one 
of the other, was the basis of their 
love. Gwynplaine saved Dea; Dea 
saved Gwynplaine. A meeting of af- 
flictions, resulting in adherence ! The 
embrace of the engulfed in the 
abyss! Nothing more contracted, 
nothing more desperate, nothing more 
exquisite ! 

Gwynplaine had one thought : 

— What should I be, without her ? 


THE BLUE IN THE BLACK. 


157 


Dea had one thought : 

— What should I be, without him ? 

These two banishments led up to one 
country ; these two incurable fatalities 
— the brand upon Gwynplaine, and 
Dea’s blinduess — effected their junction 
in contentment. They were jdl in all 
to each other ; they imagined nothing 
beyond themselves. To converse to- 
gether was a delight ; to draw near each 
other was bliss. By force of mutual in- 
tuition, they had reached a unity of 
ideas ; they two thought the same 
thought. When Gwynplaine walked, 
Dea imagined that she heard a step in 
an apotheosis. They leaned one against 
the other, in a sort of sidereal twilight, 
full of perfume, of glimmerings, of 
music, of luminous architecture, of 
dreams. They belonged each to the 
other. They felt that they were united 
forever, in the same joy and in the same 
rapture. Nothing so strange as this 
construction of an Eden by two of the 
condemned. 

They were inexpressibly happy. 

Out of their hell they had made a 
heaven. Such, 0 Love, is thy power ! 

Dea heard Gwynplaine laugh; and 
Gwynplaine saw Dea smile. 

, Thus an ideal felicity was found ; the 
perfect joy of life was realized; the 
vague problem of happiness was solved. 
And by whom? By two poor wretches. 

For Gwynplaine, Dea was the “splen- 
dor.” For Dea, Gwynplaine was the 
“presence.” 

The presence, profound mystery, 
which makes the invisible divine, and 
whence results that other mystery, 
faith. In religions, there is this only of 
irreducible. But this irreducible suf- 
fices. One sees not the great being es- 
sential to our existence ; one feels it. 

Gwynplaine was Dea’s religion. 

Sometimes, distracted with love, she 
threw herself on her knees before him, 
as it were a fair priestess adoring the 
full-blown gnome of a pagoda. 


Picture to yourself the bottomless 
pit, and in the midst of it an oasis of 
brilliancy, and in this oasis these two 
beings, beyond this life, bedazzling each 
other. 

No purity comparable to that of these 
love-passages. Dea knew not what a 
kiss was, albeit perhaps she desired it, 
for blindness, especially in a woman, 
has its fancies, and, though trembling 
at the approaches of the unknown, does 
not shrink from them all. As for 
Gwynplaine, the emotions of youth 
made him pensive. The more he felt 
himself fascinated, the more timid was 
he. He might have ventured to any 
lengths with this companion of his early 
years ; with her who was as unfamiliar 
with sin as with light; but he would 
have thought himself to be stealing 
what she might have given. He re- 
signed himself, with complacent melan- 
choly, to loving in angelic fashion, and 
the sense of his deformity resolved it- 
self intj3 dignified bashfulness. 

Such was this idyl, growing out of a 
tragedy. 

VI. 

UESUS TTJTOE, AND UESTJS GUAEDIAN. 

Uestjs had been, for Gwynplaine and 
Dea, almost a father and a mother. 
Murmuring all the time, he had reared 
them; scolding all the time, he had 
nourished them. This adoption having 
made the hut upon wheels heavier, he 
had been obliged to harness himself 
more frequently with Homo, to drag it. 

Let us add that, after the first few 
years, when Gwynplaine was almost 
grown up and Ursus was quite old, it 
had been Gwynplaine’s turn to drag 
Ursus. 

Ursus, seeing Gwynplaine grow big- 
ger, had cast the horoscope of his de- 
formity. — They have made your for- 
tune! was his remark. 

This family, of an old man, two chil- 
dren, and a wolf, had become — with all 


158 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


their prowling about — a group more 
and more closely bound together. 

The wandering life had not prevent- 
ed education. To wander is to thrive, 
said Ursus. Gwynplaine was evidently 
made to be exhibited at fairs. Ursus 
had cultivated in him the mountebank ; 
and in this mountebank, to the best of 
his ability, he had incrusted learning 
and wisdom. Ursus, arrested before 
the dumfoundering mask of Gwyn- 
plaine, muttered : “ A good beginning 
has been made of him.” That is why 
he had finished him off with all the or- 
naments of philosophy and knowledge. 

Often did he repeat to Gwynplaine — 
Be a philosopher ! To be wise is to be 
invulnerable. Such as you see me, I 
have never wept. Strength of my wis- 
dom. Do you think, if I had desired to 
weep, that I should have lacked an oc- 
casion ? 

Ursus, in his monologues, whereto 
the wolf was a listener, remarked : — I 
have taught Gwynplaine every thing, 
Latin included, and Dea nothing, in- 
cluding music. He had taught them 
both to sing. He had himself a pretty 
talent upon the wheaten pipe, a tiny 
flute of that day. He played it agree- 
ably enough, as also the chiffonie^ a 
mendicant’s hurdy-gurdy, which the 
chronicle of Bertrand Duguesclin terms 
“ instrument Fuand,” and which is the 
starting-point of symphony. This music 
attracted the populace. Ursus showed 
the cMffonie to the crowd, and said : — 
In Latin, organistrum. 

He had taught Dea and Gwynplaine 
singing, according to the method of 
Orpheus and of EgideBinchois. It oc- 
curred more than once that he cut short 
his lessons, with this cry of enthusiasm : 
Orpheus, musician of Greece ! Binchois, 
musician of Picardy ! 

These complications of a careful edu- 
cation had not so far occupied the two 
children, as to hinder them from ador- 
ing each other. They had grown up. 


commingling their hearts, just as two 
saplings planted near together, in be- 
coming trees, mingle their branches. 

— It’s all the same, murmured Ur- 
sus ; I’ll marry them. 

And he grumbled, aside : 

— They bore me with their love. 

The past — the small portion that was 
theirs at least — had no existence for 
Gwynplaine and Dea. They knew, con- 
cerning it, just what Ursus had told 
them. They called Ursus, “ Father.” 

Gwynplaine had no remembrance of 
his childhood, but as of the passing of 
demons over his cradle. He had an 
impression of it, as of having been 
stamped upon, in darkness, by deformed 
feet. "Was this done purposely, or in- 
voluntarily ? He did not know. "What 
he recalled clearly, and in its every de- 
tail, was the tragic adventure of his 
abandonment. The godsend of Dea 
made for him, out of that terrible night, 
a radiant point of time. 

Dea’s recollections were still more 
obscure than Gwynplaine’s. Having 
been so young, all had passed away. 
She recalled her mother as something 
cold. Had she ever seen the sun ? 
Perhaps. She tried hard to replunge 
her mind into the swoon that was be- 
hind her. The sun? "What was it? 
She remembered an indescribable some- 
thing, luminous and warm, that had 
been replaced by Gwynplaine. 

They conversed in low tones. Cer- 
tain is it that to coo is the most im- 
portant thing in the world. Dea said 
to Gwynplaine : — The light, it is when 
you are speaking. 

VII. 

BLINDNESS GIVES LESSONS IN CLAIEVOT- 
ANCE. 

At times, Gwynplaine reproached 
himself. He made of his happiness an 
affair of conscience. He fancied that 
to let himself be loved by this -woman, 
who could not see him, was to deceive 


BLINDNESS GIVES LESSONS IN CLAIEVOYANCE. 


159 


her. What would she say, if her eyes 
w ere suddenly opened ? How would 
she he repelled, by what now attracts 
her? How would she recoil before so 
horrible a lover ! What a shriek ! What 
hands covering her face ! What a 
plight ! A harassing scruple tormented 
him. He said to himself that he, a 
monster, had no right to appropriate 
love. Hydra, worshipped by a star, it 
was his duty to enlighten this blinded 
luminary. 

Once he said to Dea : 

You know that I am very ugly ? 

— I know that you are sublime, was 
her reply. 

He continued : 

— When you hear everybody laugh- 
ing, it is at me that they laugh, and be- 
cause I am a horrible object. 

— I love you, said Dea. 

After a pause, she added : 

— I was in death ; you brought me 
back into life. With you there, heaven 
is at my side. Give me your hand, 
that I may touch Divinity. 

Their hands sought and clasped each 
other; and they said never more a 
word, rendered silent by the plenitude 
of loving. The crabbed TJrsus had over- 
heard them. The next day, when they 
were all three together, he said : 

— Besides, Dea is ugly also. 

The words failed in their effect. Dea 
and Gwynplaine were not listening. 
Absorbed in each other, they seldom 
paid attention to TJrsus’s apothegms. 
TJrsus was profound, and at a dead loss. 

This time, however, the warning of 
TJrsus, “ Dea is ugly also,” indicated in 
that learned man a certain knowledge 
of woman. Gwynplaine, without doubt, 
had committed, in all loyalty, an act of 
imprudence. Said to a very different 
woman, and to a very different blind 
person from Dea, the expression “ I am 
ugly,” might have been dangerous. To 
be blind, and to be in love, is to be 
doubly blind. In that situation, one 
dreams. Illusion is the nourishment 


of dreams; to deprive love of illusion 
is to take away the food on which it 
lives. All enthusiasm enters, usefully, 
into its formation; physical, no less 
than moral, admiration. Furthermore, 
one should never, with a woman, use 
an expression difficult to understand. 
She dreams over it; and often she 
dreams ill. An enigma in a dream 
makes havoc. The percussion of a 
word, that is let fall, disintegrates what 
adheres. It happens sometimes that, 
one knows not how, because it has 
received the chance-shock of a casual 
word, a heart becomes void insensibly. 
The being, who loves, is conscious of a 
diminution in his bliss. Hothing is 
to be feared so much as this slow trick- 
ling out from a cracked vase. 

Fortunately, Dea was not of this clay. 

The stuff for making womankind in 
general had not served for her. A rare 
nature was Dea. The body was fragile ; 
the heart not. What was at the very 
root of her being, was a divine perse- 
verance 'in love. 

All the mischief, wrought upon her by 
Gwynplaine’s expression, led to making 
her say to him, one day, these words : 

— To be ugly, what is that ? It is to 
do evil. Gwynplaine does nothing but 
good. He is handsome. 

Then, always under that form of in- 
terrogation familiar to children and 
blind people, she went on : 

— To see? What do you call seeing, 
you others ? I do not see, I ; I know. 
It seems that to see means to conceal. 

, — How do you mean ? asked Gwyn- 
plaine. 

Dea answered : ». 

— To see is something that hides the 
truth. 

— Ho ! said Gwynplaine. 

— Yes, I tell you, replied Dea, since 
you tell me that you are ugly ! 

She thought a moment, and added: 

— Liar ! 

And Gwynplaine had the dear de- 
light of having avowed, and of not be- 


160 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


ing believed. Ilis conscience was at 
ease ; his love also. 

Thus had they reached, she sixteen 
^ ^ ye^, he J^enty-five. 

" t^hey not, as one would say now, 

‘ more a^v^iiced than in the first day. 

Their' caresses went not much be- 
yond hands pressed. 

Twenty-five years, and sixteen 1 This 
brought it about that, one morning, 
Ursus, not losing sight of his “bad 
turn,” said to them: 

— One of these days you will choose 
a religion. 

— For what purpose? asked Gwyn- 
plaine. 

— To be married by. 

— But that’s done, replied Dea. 

Dea did not understand how they 
could be husband and wife, more than 
they were. 

In the main, this chimerical and vir- 
ginal contentedness, this ingenuous sa- 
tiating of soul by soul, this celibacy, 
taken for marriage, was not displeasing 
to Ursus. What he said of it was said 
because he was bound to say something. 
But the physician within him found 
Dea, if not too young, at least too deli- 
cate and too frail for what he termed 
“ hymen in the flesh and bone.” 

That would always come soon 
enough. 

Besides, were they not married ? If 
the indissoluble exist anywhere, was it 
not in this cohesion, Gwynplaine and 
Dea? Bare circumstance, they were 
adorably cast into each other’s arms by 
misfortune ! And as though this first 
bond were not sufficient, love had come 
to attach itself to misfortune, to be 
enveloped in it, to be closely bound to 
it. What force could ever break the 
iron chain, made firmer by the knot of 
flowers ? 

There, in truth, must be the insepa- 
rables. 

Dea had beauty, Gwynplaine had 
sight. Each brought a dowry; and 
they made more than a couple — they 


made a pair, kept apart only by inno- 
cenpe ; a sacred interposition. 

NTevertheless, it was in vain that 
Gwynplaine went on dreaming, and 
absorbed himself as far as he could in 
contemplation of Dea, and in the spirit- 
ual tribunal of his love ; he was man. 
There is no eluding the laws of fatality. 
He underwent, as does Nature through- 
out all her immensity, the secret work- 
ings ordained by the Creator. This, at 
times when he appeared in public, made 
him eye the women who were in the 
crowd; but he turned away immedi- 
ately this untoward look, and hastened 
to reenter, repentant, into his inner self. 

Let it be added, that encouragement 
was wanting upon the countenances of 
all the women at whom he looked ; he 
saw aversion, antipathy, repugnance, 
rejection. It was clear that, for him, 
none other but Dea was possible. This 
aided him in his repentance. 

YIII. 

NOT HAPPINESS ONLY, BUT PEOS- 
PEEITY. 

How much truth there is in fables 1 
Kemorse for an evil thought is the 
searching touch of an invisible devil. 

In Gwynplaine’s case, the evil thought 
was not yet hatched, and he never felt 
remorse. But, occasionally, he felt re- 
gret. 

Yague film of conscience! 

What was there in it ? Nothing. 

Their good fortune was complete. 
So complete that they were no longer 
even poor. 

Between 1689 and 1704, a great 
change had taken place. 

It happened sometimes, in this year 
1704, that, at nightfall, a large and 
heavy caravan, drawn by two strong 
horses, made its entry into such or such 
small sea-coast town. It was like the 
hull of a vessel turned uspide-down, 
the keel for roof, the deck for floor, and 
set upon four wheels. The wheels 
were all of the same size, and no higher 


NOT HAPPINESS ONLY, BUT PEOSPEEITY. 


161 


than those of stone-carts. "Wheels, 
pole, and body — all was painted in 
green, with a rhythmical gradation of 
shades, varying, from bottle-green on 
the wheels, to apple-green on the roof- 
ing. This green color had ended by 
setting a mark upon the vehicle ; and 
it became well known wherever fairs 
were held. They called it the Green- 
Box. This Green-Box had only two 
windows, one at each end, and a door 
behind, with steps. Above the roof, 
from a funnel painted green like the 
rest, issued the smoke. This peripatet- 
ic house was always newly varnished 
and freshly washed. In front, upon a 
bracket-seat attached to the vehicle and 
with access to it through the window, 
above the horses’ hind-quarters and by 
the side of an old man who held the reins 
and managed the team, two trolloping 
women of the gypsy tribe, costumed as 
goddesses, sounded the trumpet. The 
wonder-stricken citizens stared at and 
commented upon this machine, as it 
rudely jolted about. 

It was the old establishment of Frsus, 
amplified by success, and promoted from 
a mountebank’s stage to a theatre. 

An animal, something between dog 
and wolf, was chained under the cara^ 
van. This was Homo. 

The old whip, driving the hacks, was 
the philosopher himself in person. 

"Whence came this expansion of the 
miserable hut into an Olympian car ? 

From this fact: Gwynplaine was a 
celebrity. 

It was with a sagacious foresight of 
that which is success among men, that 
Ursus had said to Gwynplaine : — They 
have made your fortune ! 

Ursus, it will be remembered, had 
made Gwynplaine his pupil. Unknown 
persons had worked upon the visage. 
He himself had worked upon the intelli- 
gence ; and, behind the mask so suc- 
cessfully wrought, had inserted all that 
he could of thought. So soon as the 
11 


child, grown bigger, seemed to him 
worthy of it, Ursus had brought him 
upon the stage, that is to say upon the . 
front board of the hut. effeCVof 

this appearance had been extraordinary. 
All in a moment, the passers-by had 
admired. Nothing comparable to this 
surprising mimic laugh had ever been 
seen. No one knew how the miracle 
of communicable hilarity had been ob- 
tained. Some thought it natural, some 
artificial; and, conjecture being added 
to reality, everywhere, in the public 
places, in the markets, in the various 
stations of fair and frte, the crowd flung 
itself upon Gwynplaine. Thanks to 
this “ great attraction,” a shower had 
fallen into the poor money-box of the 
wandering group — ^first of farthings, then 
of pennies, and finally of shillings. One 
field for curiosity exhausted, they passed 
on to another. The rolling stone does 
not grow rich, but the rolling hut does : 
and thus from year to year, from town 
to towij, with the growth of Gwyn- 
plaine’s figure and of his ugliness, the 
fortune came that Ursus had predicted. 

— What a service they rendered you 
there, my boy ! said Ursus. 

This “fortune ’’had allowed Ursus, 
the administrator of Gwynplaine’s suc- 
cess, to have the vehicle of his dreams 
constructed ; that is to say, a caravan 
large enough to carry a theatre and 
sow science and art in the public 
squares. Further stUl, Ursus had been 
enabled to add to the group composed 
of himself, of Homo, of Gwynplaine, 
Dea, two horses and two women, the 
latter of whom were goddesses in the 
troop, as we have just remarked, and 
servants. A mythological frontispiece 
was useful in those days, to a mounte- 
bank’s booth. — We are a wandering 
temple ! said Ursus. 

These two trolloping women, picked 
up by the philosopher in the nomadic 
pell-mell of towns and suburbs, were 
ugly and young, and were called, by de- 


162 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


cree of Ursus, tlie one Phoebe, and the 
other Venus. Kead: Fibi and Vinos^ 
seeing that it is proper to conform to 
English pronunciation. 

Phoebe did the cooking, and Venus 
scrubbed the temple. 

Furthermore, on the days of perform- 
ance, they dressed Dea, 

Outside of what constitutes — ^for 
mountebanks as for princes — ^public 
life, Dea, like Fibi and Vinos, wore a 
Florentine skirt in flowered stufi*, and 
a woman’s hooded cape, which, having 
no sleeves, left her arms free. Ursus 
and Gwynplaine wore men’s hooded 
capes, and large shoulder-knots, like 
seamen in the navy. Gwynplaine had, 
in addition, for his exercises and ex- 
hibitions of strength, a leather pelerine 
round his neck and over his shoulders. 
He took care of the horses. Ursus and 
Homo took care of each other. 

Dea, from being accustomed to the 
Green-Box, came and went in the in- 
terior of that rolling house, quite at her 
ease, and as though she could see. 

An eye that could have penetrated 
into the recesses, and noted the arrange- 
ments of this travelling abode, might 
have perceived in one corner — fastened 
to the wooden sides and immovable 
upon its four wheels — the old hut of 
Ursus, put upon the retired list, having 
permission to rust, and henceforth ex- 
empted from rolling, as Homo from 
dragging. 

This hut, set up in the back corner 
on right of the door, served as chamber 
and dressing-room for Ursus and Gwyp- 
plaine. It contained, now, two beds. 
In the opposite corner was the kitchen. 

The arrangement on shipboard is not 
more compressed and precise than was 
the internal parcelling out of the Green- 
Box. Every thing therein was fixed, set 
in its place, provided for, designed. 

The caravan was divided into three 
compartments, partitioned off. The 
compartments communicated by open- 


ings, without doors. A piece of stuff, 
let fall, closed them in a manner. The 
rear compartment was the men’s lodg- 
ing; the front compartment was the 
women’s lodging ; the middle compart- 
ment, separating the two sexes, was the 
theatre. The orchestral instruments 
and the accessories were in the kitchen. 
A loft under the arch of the roof con- 
tained the scenery ; and, by opening a 
trap-door in the loft, lamps were un- 
masked that produced magical effects 
in lighting. 

Ursus was the poet of these enchant- 
ments. He it was who got up the 
shows. 

His were "varied talents; he had 
special juggler’s tricks of his own. Be- 
sides the voices that he made you hear, 
he brought out all sorts of unexpected 
things, abrupt transitions from light to 
darkness, spontaneous formations of 
ciphers or words at wiU upon the par- 
tition, lights and shadows mingled with 
the fading away of figures, and many 
another oddity, in the midst of all 
which, inattentive to the gaping crowd, 
he seemed to be meditating. 

Gwynplaine had said to him one day ; 

— Father, you have the air of a ma- 
gician. 

And Ursus had replied : 

— This comes, perhaps, from my be- 
ing one. 

The Green-Box, constructed accord- 
ing to a skilful diagram by Ursus, had 
one ingenious refinement. Between the 
two fore and hind wheels, -the central 
left-hand panel worked upon a hinge by 
means of an adjustment of chains and 
puUeys, and could be lowered at will 
like a drawbridge. As it was lowered, 
it set at liberty three props, also on 
hinges, which, remaining vertical while 
the panel was down, set themselves 
upright upon the ground, like the legs 
of a table, and upheld above it, as it 
were, a stage, the panel converted 
into a platform. The theatre was at 


NOT HAPPINESS ONLY, BUT PROSPEEITY. 


163 


the same time disclosed, enlarged by 
the platform -which made the front of 
its stage. This opening — according to 
the out-of-doors Puritan preachers, who 
turned away from it with horror — ab- 
solutely resembled a mouth of hell. 
Probably it was for an impious inven- 
tion of this kind that Solon had Thespis 
cudgelled. 

Thespis, moreover, has lasted longer 
than is believed. The theatre on wheels 
still exists. It was upon movable 
boards of this sort that, in the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries, they 
represented, in England, the ballets and 
the ballads of Amner and of Pilking- 
ton; in Prance, the pastorals of Gilbert 
Colin; in Flanders, at the fairs, the 
double choruses of Clement, called Non- 
Papa ; in Germany, the Adam and Eve 
of Thailes; and in Italy, the Venetian 
shows of Animuccia and of Ca-Fos- 
sis, the Sylvm of Gesualdo, Prince of 
Venousa, Laura Guidiccioni’s “Satyr,” 
the Despair of Philenus, “Fgolino’s 
Death,” by Vincent Galileo, father 
of the astronomer, the which Vincent 
Galileo sang his own music, accompa- 
nying himself on the viol di gamba, 
together with all those first attempts at 
Italian opera, which, after 1580, sub- 
stituted free inspiration for the madri- 
gal style. 

The caravan, in its color emblematic 
of Hope, that bore TJrsus and Gwyn- 
plaine and their fortunes, and at the 
head of which Fibi and Vinos trum- 
peted like a brace of Fames, was a 
link in all this grand' chain, Bohemian 
and literary. Thespis would no more 
have disavowed Hrsus, than Congris 
would have disavowed Gwynplaine. 

On their arrival upon the public 
places in town or village, and in the 
intervals of Vinos and Fibi’s flourishes, 
Drsus commented upon the trumpets, 
with instructive revelations. 

— That symphony is Gregorian, he 
cried. Fellow-citizens, the Gregorian 


sacramental rite — that grand advance 
— has run a tilt in Italy against 
the Ambrosian rite, and in Spain 
against the Mozarabio rite, and has 
only triumphed over them with diffi- 
culty. 

After which, the Green-Box came to 
a halt on some spot of TJrsus’ choosing ; 
and in the evening, the panel stage- 
front was lowered down, and the per- 
formance began. 

The theatre of the Green-Box repre- 
sented a landscape, painted by Hrsus, 
who didn’t know how to paint; by 
reason of which, when required, the 
landscape could do duty as a subterra- 
nean vault. 

The screen, that which we call the 
curtain, was a blind made of silk with 
variegated squares. 

The public was outside, in the street, 
in the open place, grouped in a semi-cir- 
cle around the show, under sunlight, or 
under sudden showers, an arrangement 
that made rain less desirable for theatres 
of that time, than for those of to-day. 
As often as they could, they gave rep- 
resentations in the court-yard of an 
inn. Hereby, they had as many tiers 
of boxes as there were rows of win- 
dows ; and thus also, the more cramped 
the theatre, the larger the paying pub- 
lic. 

Hrsus figui^d everywhere in the 
piece, in the troupe, in the kitchen, in 
the orchestra. Vinos beat the kettle- 
drum, the sticks of which she handled 
marvellously ; and Fibi thrummed the 
momche^ a sort of gittern. The wolf 
had been promoted to be “ utility 
man.” He was decidedly a member 
of the company, and played occasion- 
ally the odds-and-ends of a part. Often, 
when they appeared side by side upon 
the stage, Hrsus and Homo, Hrsus in 
his bear-skin lightly laced, Homo in 
his wolf-skin better adjusted still, one 
could not make out which was the 
beast. This flattered Hrsus. 


164 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


IX. 

EXTEA-YAGANCES THAT TASTELESS FOLKS 
CALL POETEY. 

Uesus’s plays were interludes, a 
style somewhat out of vogue in these 
days. One of these pieces, which has 
not come down to us, was entitled 
Ursiia Eursus. It is probable that he 
himself played the principal part in it. 
A wrong exit, followed by a reSn- 
trance, was probably its subject — a 
sober and praiseworthy one. 

The title of Ursus’s interludes was 
sometimes in Latin, as you perceive, 
and the verse sometimes in Spanish. 
The Spanish verses of Ursus were 
rhymed, like nearly all the Castilian 
sonnets of that pefiod. That did not 
trouble the people. Spanish was then 
a common tongue; and the English 
seamen spoke Castilian, just as the 
Koman soldiers spoke Carthaginian. 
Eefer to Plautus. Besides, at the 
theatre, as at mass, the Latin or any 
other tongue, not understood by the 
audience, did not embarrass any one. 
They got out of any difficulty, by ac- 
companying it gayly with weU-known 
words. Our old Gallic France had 
this peculiar mode of being devout. 
At church, the faithful chanted Liesse 
prendrai^ to an. Immolatm ; and 
Baise-moi^ ma mie^ to a Sanctus. A 
council of Trent was required to put a 
stop to these familiarities. 

Ursus had composed one interlude for 
Gwynplaine, with which he was con- 
tent It was his masterpiece. He had 
laid himself thoroughly out in it. To 
gain his sum total in his product is the 
triumph of whoever creates. The female 
toad, conceiving a toad, makes a mas- 
terpiece. You doubt it ? Try to do 
as jnuch ! 

TJrsus had licked this interlude over 
and over. The bear’s whelp was en- 
titled Chaos Conquered. 


This is what it was : 

An effect of night. At the moment 
when the blind was removed, the crowd, 
massed before the Green-Box, saw noth- 
ing but blackness. In this blackness, 
three confused forms were moving on 
the floor like reptiles — a wolf, a bear, 
and a man. The wolf was the wolf; 
Ursus was the bear; the man was 
Gwynplaine. The wolf and the bear 
represented the fierce forces of Hature 
— unconscious hunger, savage obscurity 
— and both threw themselves upon 
Gwynplaine ; this was chaos combat- 
ing with man. None of their faces 
could be distinguished. Gwynplaine 
did his fighting, covered with a sheet ; 
and his face was hidden by his thick 
falling hair. Besides, all was in dark- 
ness. The bear growled; the wolf 
gnashed his teeth ; the man shrieked. 
The man was underneath; the two 
beasts bore hard upon him. He shout- 
ed for help and relief; profound was 
his appeal to the unknown. He rattled 
in his throat. They were witnessing 
that agony of man in the rough, which 
is scarcely distinct from that of brutes. 
It was doleful ; the crowd looked on, 
panting. A minute more, and the 
beasts would triumph; and chaos was 
about to reabsorb man. Struggles, 
cries, howls ; and then, all at once, si- 
lence. A song in the shade; a breath 
had passed ; they heard a voice. Mys- 
terious music was floating round, ac- 
companying this song of the invisible ; 
and suddenly, one knew not how or 
whence, a whiteness grew up before 
them. This whiteness was light ; this 
light was woman ; this woman was mind. 
Dea, calm, pure, lovely, intimidating 
in her serenity and sweetness, appeared 
in the midst of a halo. Faint suggestion 
of brilliancy, at the dawn of day. The 
voice — ^it was she. Voice light-toned, 
but deep, ineffable. The invisible made 
apparent, in this day-dawn she was 
singing. You thought you heard an 


EXTEAVAGANCES THAT TASTELESS FOLKS CALL POETEY. 165 


angel’s song, or the hymn of a bird. 
At this apparition, the man, raising 
himself up with a start of dazzled won- 
derment, let fall his two closed fists 
upon the two brutes overpowered. 

Then the vision, borne forward by a 
gliding movement difficult to make out, 
and for that reason all the more ad- 
mired, sang these verses in Spanish 
sufficiently pure for the English sailors 
who were the listeners : 

Ora ! Llora 1 
De palabra 
Nace razon 
Da luz el son.* * * § * 

Then she let her eyes fall below her, 
as though she might have been looking 
into a gulf, and continued : 

Noche qmtate de alli I 

El alba canta halleli.t 

By degrees as she sang, the man 
raised himself more and more, and, 
from a recumbent posture, was now 
kneeling, his hands lifted toward the 
vision, and his two knees set upon the 
two beasts, who were motionless and 
as it were thunderstricken. Turned 
toward him, she went on 

Es menester 5. cielos ir, 

Y tu que Uorabas reir.J 

And approaching with starry majes- 
ty, she added : 

Quiebra barzon. 

Deja Dextra, monstrao, 

A tu negro 
Caparazon.§ 

And she placed her hand upon his 
brow. 

Then another voice was lifted up, 
deeper, and consequently sweeter still, 
a voice, broken-hearted and ecstatic, 
of a gravity tender and wild ; and this 
was the human chant, in response to the 

* Pray 1 Weep I Eeason is born of the word. 
Song creates light. 

t Night! Go away I The dawn Is singing the 
death-whoop. 

$ Thou must go to heaven and laugh, thou 
who wert weeping. 

§ Break the yoke I Leave, monster, thy black 
callipash 1 


chant from ihe stars. Gwynplaine all 
the while kneeling in the darkness upon 
the vanquished bear and wolf, with his 
head under Dea’s hand, then sang : 

O ven ! ama ! 

Eres alma, 

Soy carazon.* 

And suddenly, in the darkness, a jet 
of light struck Gwynplaine full in the 
face. 

The full-blown monster was made 
visible in the obscurity. 

It would be impossible to describe 
the commotion in the crowd. A sun 
of laughter bursting out — such was the 
effect. Laughter is born of the unex- 
pected; and nothing could be more 
unexpected than this winding-up. No 
shock comparable to this buffet of light 
upon this buffoonish and terrible mask. 
There was laughing round about this 
laughter; everywhere, above, below, 
in front, at the back; men, women, 
old bald-heads, rosy faces of children, 
the gqod, the bad. Gay folks, sad 
folks, all the world, and even passers- 
by in the street, those who saw not, 
hearing the laugh, laughed. And the 
laugh ended in clappings of hands and 
in stampings of feet. The blind let 
down, Gwynplaine was tumultuously 
recalled. Thence an enormous success. 
Have you seen Chaos Conquered ? 
There was running after Gwynplaine. 
Carelessness came to laugh, melancholy 
came to laugh, evil consciences came to 
laugh. So irresistible was the laugh, 
that at moments it seemed as though it 
might be unwholesome. But if there 
be one pest that man shuns not, it is 
the contagion of mirth. For the rest, 
the success did not reach beyond the 
populace. A large crowd is a small 
audience. Chaos Conquered was seen 
for a penny. The fashionable world 
goes not where it can go for a. penny. 

IJrsus did not think meanly of this 

* Oh, come, Love ! Thou art soul ; I am 
heart. 


166 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND, 


work, wMcli he had been a long time 
hatching. 

— It is in the style of a fellow named 
Shakspeare, said he modestly. 

Dea’s contiguity heightened the in- 
expressible effect of Gwynplaine. This 
blanched figure, by the side of this 
gnome, was a symbol of superhuman 
astonishment. The people regarded 
Dea with an approach to mysterious 
apprehension. Hers was a something 
supreme and indescribable, made up of 
the virgin and the priestess, ignorant 
of man and familiar with the Deity. 
One saw that she was blind, and yet one 
felt that she was seeing. She seemed 
to stand upon the threshold of the su- 
pernatural. She appeared to be half 
within our own range of light, and 
half in the brightness of another sphere. 
She came to do her work upon earth, 
and to work as Heaven works with the 
dawn. She found a hydra, and made a 
soul. She had the air of a creative 
faculty, content yet astounded with her 
creation. You imagined upon her vis- 
age, adorably terrified, the will to act, 
and surprise at the result. You felt 
that she was in love with her monster. 
Did she recognize his monstrosity ? 
Yes, because she came in contact with 
him. No, because she accepted him. 
All this night, all this day, intermingled, 
resolved itself in the spectator’s mind 
into a dim medium, peopled with infi- 
nite vistas. How divinity cleaves to 
the rough draft, in what guise the 
penetration of soul into matter is ac- 
complished, how the solar ray consti- 
tutes an umbilical cord, how the dis- 
figured is transfigured, how the shape- 
less becomes paradisiacal — glimpses of 
all these mysteries complicated, with an 
emotion almost comic, the convulsion 
of hilarity excited by Gwynplaine. 
Without going to the root of it, for the 
spectator likes not the trouble of deep 
probing, one comprehended something 
beyond what was seen ; and this 


strange spectacle had in it the trans- 
lucency of Avatar. 

As for Dea, what she experienced 
transcends human words. She felt 
that she was in the midst of a crowd, 
and knew not what a crowd was. She 
heard a noise, and that was all. For 
her, a crowd was a breath ; in reality, 
it is nothing more. Generations are 
puffs of breath, that pass away. Man 
respires, aspires, and expires. In this 
crowd Dea felt herself t6 be alone, and 
shivered as one might if suspended over 
a precipice. All at once, in this trouble 
of the innocent in distress, who is ready 
to accuse the unknown, in this misgiv- 
ing as to a possible fall, Dea — serene, 
nevertheless, and superior to the vague 
anguish of peril, though internally 
quivering at her isolation — found again 
her certitude and her support. She 
seized again her guiding clew in the 
labyrinth of darkness. She laid her 
hand upon the potent head of Gwyn- 
plaine. Joy unheard of! She leaned 
her rosy fingers upon this forest of 
crispy hair. The touch of wool awakens 
an idea of something soft. Dea was 
touching a sheep, whom she knew to 
be a lion. AU her heart grounded it- 
self upon an ineffable love. She felt 
herself to be out of danger; she had 
found her saving genius. The public 
fancied that it saw the reverse. For 
the spectators, the being saved was 
Gwynplaine, and the being who saved 
was Dea. — ^What matter ? thought IJrsus, 
to whom Dea’s heart was revealed. — 
And Dea — ^reassured, consoled, enchant- 
ed — ^worshipped the angel; while the 
people stared at the monster, and, 
themselves also fascinated, though in 
• the inverse sense, kept up this immense 
Promethean laughter. 

1 ^' True love is not palled. Being all ^ 
' soul, it cannot become lukewarm. Em- i 
bers may be put out with ashes ; a star-*^ 
cannot be. These delicious impressions 
were renewed every evening for Dea ; 


AN OUTSIDEE’S SUEVEY OF MEN AND THINGS. 


167 


and she was ready to weep for Tery 
tenderness, while the rest were writh- 
ing in laughter. Around her they 
were given up to mirth ; she — she was 
happy. 

For the rest, this hilarious effect, due 
to Gwynplaine’s unforeseen and stu- 
pendous grimace, was evidently not 
coveted by Ursus. He would have pre- 
ferred more smiling and less laughing, 
and an admiration more literary in 
character. But triumph consoles. He 
reconciled himself, evening after even- 
ing, to his prodigious success, as he 
counted how many piles of farthings 
made up the shillings, and how many 
piles of shillings made up the pounds. 
And then he said to himself that, after 
all, when the laughing was over. Chaos 
Conquered would be found again in the 
popular heart, and that something of it 
would remain with them. Perhaps he 
did not altogether deceive himself; the 
settling - down of a work is depend- 
ent on the public. The truth is, this 
populace — attentive to this wolf, to this 
bear, to this man, then to this music, 
to these howls subdued by harmony, to 
this night dispelled by the dawn, to 
this song ushering in the light — ac- 
cepted with a confused yet deep sym- 
pathy, and even with a certain tender 
respect, the drama-poem of Chaos Con- 
quered^ the victory of mind over matter, 
eventuating in human joy. 

Such were the people’s rude pleas- 
ures. 

And they sufficed. The people had 
not the wherewithal for going to the 
“noble’s match” of the gentry, and 
could not, like the lords and gentlemen, 
bet their thousand guineas on Helms- 
gail against Phelem-ghe-Madone. 


X. 

AIT outsider’s SUEVEY OF MEN AND 
THINGS. 

Man has one thought — ^to avenge 
himself for pleasure conferred upon 
him. Thence the contempt for actors. 

This being charms me, diverts me, 
distracts me, teaches me, enchants me, 
consoles me, distils for me the ideal, is 
agreeable and useful to me — ^what harm 
can I do him in return? Humiliation. 
Disdain is- the slap-in-the-face from a 
distance. Let’s slap his face! He 
pleases me; therefore he is vile. He 
serves me; therefore I detest him. — 
Where is there a stone that I can throw 
at him ? Priest, give me yours I Phi- 
losopher, give me yours ! Bossuet, ex- 
communicate him! Eousseau, insult 
him! Orator, spit at him the pebbles 
from your mouth ! Bear, heave at him 
your paving-stone ! Let’s throw stones 
at th^tree, bruise the fruit, and eat it! 
Bravo! and down with him! Eepeat 
poets’ words ? It’s pestiferous ! Stage- 
player ! Away ! Let’s put him in the 
pillory in the midst of his success! — 
Let’s wind up his triumph with a hoot! 
Let him gather a crowd, and create a 
solitude! Thus it is that the rich 
classes, called the high classes, have in- 
vented for the actor that form of isola- 
tion — applause. 

The populace is less ferocious. It did 
not detest Gwynplaine. Neither did it 
despise him. Only, the lowest caulker, 
of the lowest crew, of the lowest carack, 
moored in the lowest of the English 
ports, considered himself immeasurably 
superior to that amuser of the rabble, 
and held that a caulker is as far above 
a mountebank, as a lord is above a 
caulker. 

Gwynplaine, then, like all actors, was 
applauded and isolated. Besides, here 
below all success is crime, and must be 


168 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


expiated. Whoever has the medal has 
the reverse. 

But, for Gwynplaine, there was no 
reverse — for the reason that his success 
wa‘s agreeable to him on both sides. He 
was satisfied with the applause, and 
content with the isolation. Through 
the applause, he was rich ; through the 
isolation, he was happy. 

To be rich, in these shallows, is to be 
no longer miserable. It is to have no 
more holes in one’s clothes, no more 
chill on the hearth, no more void in the 
stomach. It is to eat when one is 
hungry, and drink when one is athirst. 
It is to have aU that is necessary, includ- 
ing a penny for a poor man. Of this 
indigent wealth, sufficient to keep him 
free, Gwynplaine was possessed. 

On the side of the soul, he was 
opulent. Love was Lis. What could 
he desire ? 

He desired nothing. 

The removal of his deformity — you 
might imagine this an offer to be made 
him! How he would have repelled 
it ! Lay down this mask, and take up 
again his own visage, becoming once 
more handsome and charming as he had 
perhaps been — assuredly, he would not 
have wished it ! And by what means 
could he have supported Dea ? What 
would have become of the poor and 
gentle blind one who loved him ? With- 
out this grin, that made of him a clown 
unparalleled, he would have been no 
more than any other mountebank, a 
mere equilibrist like the rest, a picker- 
up of farthings in the pavement crevices ; 
and Dea perhaps would not have been 
sure of her every-day’s bread. With 
profound and tender pride, he felt that he 
was the protector of this celestial weak- 
ness. Night, solitude, nakedness, impo- 
tence, ignorance, hunger, and thirst — ^the 
seven yawning mouths of misery — were 
threatening around her, and he was the 
St. George to fight this dragon. And 
he triumphed over the misery. How ? — 


by his deformity ! Through his deform- 
ity, he was useful, helpful, victorious, 
great. He had only to show himself, 
and money came. He was the master 
of crowds ; ho proclaimed himself the 
sQvereign of the populace. He could 
do every thing for Dea. He provided 
for her wants. Within the limited range 
of wishes possible to the blind, he satis- 
fied her desires, her cravings, her fan- 
tasies. Gwynplaine and Dea, as we 
have already shown, were a providence, 
one for the other. He felt himself 
borne up on her wings ; she felt herself 
carried in his arms. To protect her 
who loves you, to confer competency 
upon her who confers the stars upon 
you — there is nothing sweeter. Gwyn- 
plaine enjoyed this supreme felicity. 
He owed it to his disfigurement. This 
disfigurement had made him superior to 
every thing. By it, he gained his liveli- 
hood and the livelihood of others ; by 
it, he acquired independence, liberty, 
celebrity, satisfaction within himself, 
pride. In this disfigurement he was in- 
accessible. The Fates could do nothing 
against him, beyond this stroke where- 
in they had exhausted themselves, and 
which he had converted into a triumph. 
This depth of ill had become an Elysian 
pinnacle. Gwynplaine was imprisoned 
in his deformity — but with Dea. This 
was, as we have remarked, to be in a 
dungeon of Paradise. Between them 
and the living world there was a wall. 
So much the better. This wall penned 
•them in, but defended them. What 
could any one do against Dea, what 
could any one do against Gwynplaine, 
so shut out from the life around them ? 
Take away success from him ? Impos- 
sible ; it would have been requisite to 
take away his face. Take away love 
from him? Impossible; Dea did not 
see him. Dea’s blindness was divinely 
incurable. What inconvenience did his 
disfigurement cause to Gwynplaine ? 
None. What advantages had it? All. 


AN OUTSIDER’S SURVEY OF MEN AND THINGS. 


169 


He was loved in spite of this horror, 
and perhaps in consequence of it. AY eak- 
ness and deformity were, by instinct, 
di'awn together, and coupled. To he 
loved, is not this every thing ? Gwyn- 
plaine did not think of his disfigure- 
ment, save with gratitude. The brand 
was for him a blessing. He felt with 
joy that it was ineradicable and 
eternal. AYhat luck, that the boon 
should he remediless ! So long as there 
were open places, fair-grounds, roads 
whereon to travel at one’s will, a peo- 
ple below, and a heaven above, so long 
he would be sure of a livelihood ; Dea 
would want for nothing ; there would 
he love for them I Gwynplaine would 
not have changed faces with Apollo. To 
be monstrous was, for him, a form of 
bliss. 

Thus did we say, at the beginning, 
that destiny had filled up his measure. 
This condemned one was in high favor. 

He was so happy that he came to 
commiserate the men around him. 
He pitied them more than enough. It 
was furthermore his instinct to look 
somewhat outside of himself; for no 
man is all of one piece, nor is Hature 
an abstraction. He was charmed to 
bo waUed in ; but, from time to time, he 
raised his head above the wall. It 
was only with so much the more de- 
light that he fell back upon his isola- 
tion by Dea’s side, after having made 
his comparisons. 

AYhat did he see around him ? AYhat 
were these living people, of whom his 
own roving life showed him all manner 
of specimens, each day replaced by 
others? Ever new crowds, and ever 
the same multitude. Ever new faces, 
and ever the same adversity. A pro- 
miscuousness of ruins. Every even- 
ing, all the social fatalities came and 
grouped themselves around his felicity. 

The Green-Box was popular. 

A low price appeals to a low class. 
They who came to him were the fee- 


ble, the poor, the little ones. They 
resorted to Gwynplaine, as one resorts 
to gin. They came to buy two half- 
pence worth of forgetfulness. Erom 
the elevation of his stage, Gwynplaine 
passed the unenlightened populace in 
review. His spirit drank in all these 
successive apparitions of uttermost 
wretchedness. The human physiog- 
nomy is compounded of conscience 
and of life, and is the result of many a 
mysterious delving. Not a pang, not 
a passion, not a shame, not a despair, 
whereof Gwynplaine did not witness 
the furrow. These children’s mouths 
had not eaten food. That man was a 
father, that woman a mother ; and be- 
hind them he divined families in perdi- 
tion. Such a countenance was emerg- 
iug from vice, and entering upon crime ; 
and he comprehended the wherefore — 
ignorance and indigence. Such an- 
other offered the impress of early 
goodness, erased by social pressure, 
and replaced by hate. On this old 
womali’s face he read famine ; on that 
young girl’s brow he read prostitution 
— the same fact, offering in the case of 
the young one a resource, and all the 
more mournful therein. In the crowd, 
there were arms, but no tools; the 
workmen were willing, but the work 
was lacking. Occasionally a soldier — 
it might be a disabled one — came and 
took his seat beside a workman ; and 
then Gwynplaine saw the spectre, war. 
Here Gwynplaine read cessation from 
labor, there labor with research, there 
servitude. On certain brows he made 
out an indescribable ebbing toward 
animal life, and that gradual return of 
man to beast, that is brought about, 
below, by the indefinite pressure of 
ponderous enjoyment above. In all 
this gloom, there was for Gwynplaine 
one relief. He and Dea derived hap- 
piness through a borrowed light. All 
the rest was perdition. Gwynplaine 
perceived above him the unconscion- 


170 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


able prancing of the powerful, the 
opulent, the magnificent, the great, 
the elect of chance. Beneath him, he 
distinguished the pale-faced herd of 
the disinherited. He saw himself and 
Dea — with their happiness, limited but 
immense — placed between two worlds : 
above, the world that comes and goes, 
free, joyous, dancing, trampling under 
foot; above, the world that marches 
onward; below, the world over which 
it marches. Fatal fact, indicative of 
profound social ill, the light eclipses 
the shade I Gwynplaine verified this 
sorrow. "What! a destiny so like a 
reptile’s I Man dragging himself along 
thus! Such a clinging to dust and 
mire, such disgust, such abdication, 
such abjectness, that one longs to put 
the foot upon it ! Of what butterfiy, 
then, is this terrestrial life the cater- 
pillar? What! in this crowd of the 
hungry and the ignorant, everywhere, 
before us, the point of interrogation of 
crime or of shame! Inflexibility of 
laws, productive of enervated con- 
sciences! Hot a child, that grows not 
up to be humbled! Hot a virgin, 
who grows not taller for the procur- 
ess! Hot a rose, that buds not for the 
slime of the snail ! His eyes, at times, 
curious with the curiosity of emotion, 
sought to pierce to the bottom of that 
obscurity, wherein so many abortive 
efibrts were agonizing and so many 
wearinesses were struggling — ^families 
devoured by society, morals tortured 
by laws, sores gangrened by penalties, 
indigences gnawed by taxation, intel- 
ligences gone to wreck in the engulf- 
ment of ignorance, rafts in distress 
covered with the starving, wars, fam- 
ines, rattlings in the throat, cries, dis- 
appearances. He felt himself vaguely 
seized upon by this poignant and uni- 
versal anguish. He had a sight of all this 
spume of misfortune, cast over the som- 
bre human pell-mell. For himself, he 
was in port, as he looked at the ship- 


wreck all around him. Once in a 
while, he took his disfigured head be- 
tween his hands, and mused. 

What madness to bo happy! How 
one dreams ! Fancies came upon him. 
Absurd ideas passed across his brain. 
Because he had once succored a child, 
it occurred to him that he would like 
to aid the world. The mists of revery 
obscured at times his own identity. 
He so far lost the sense of proportion, 
as to say : “ What can one do for these 
poor people? ” Sometimes his absorp- 
tion was such, that he said it aloud. 
TJrsus then shrugged his shoulders, and 
looked steadily at him; and Gwjii- 
plaine went on : “ Oh ! if I were power- 
ful, how I would help the wretched! 
But what am I ? An atom. What can 
Ido? Hothing.” 

He was mistaken. He could do much 
for the wretched. He made them 
laugh. 

And, as we have remarked, to make 
any one laugh is to make him forget. 

What a benefactor on earth is a dis- 
tributor of forgetfulness ! 

XL 

GWYNPLAINE HAS JUSTICE ON HIS SIDE; 

UESUS HAS TEUTH. 

A PHILOSOPHEE is a spy. Ursus, ob- 
servant of dreams, studied his pupil. 
Our monologues are vaguely reflected 
on our brows, as is distinctly apparent 
to the physiognomist. This is why 
what was passing in Gwynplaine did 
not escape Hrsus. One day, when 
Gwynplaine was meditating, TJrsus, 
pulling him by his hooded cape, ex- 
claimed : 

— You have the air of a star-gazer, 
you simpleton. Take care; this is no 
concern of yours. Yon have only one 
thing to do — ^to love Dea. You have 
two good reasons for being happy : The 
one, that the crowd sees your muzzle ; 


GWYNPLAINE HAS JUSTICE ON HIS SIDE, ETC. 


171 


the other, that Dea doesn’t see it. You 
have no right to this latter good luck. 
No woman, who could see your mouth, 
would accept your kiss. And the very 
mouth that makes your fortune, the 
face that brings you riches — ^they are 
not your own. You were never horn 
with that countenance. You borrowed 
it from the grin, which lies in the 
depths of the infinite. You have rob- 
bed the devil of his mask. You are 
hideous ; be content with throwing dou- 
ble-fives. There are in this world, which 
is a pretty well-constructed affair, the 
happy by right, and the happy by a 
chance hit. You are happy by the 
chance hit. You are in a cellar, where- 
in a star has been caught. The poor 
star is yours. Don’t try to get out of 
your cellar; and hold on, spider, to 
your star! You have got the ruby, 
Venus, in your web. Do me thp favor 
to be satisfied. I perceive that you 
have unquiet dreams; that’s idiotic. 
Listen ; I’m going to talk to you in the 
language of true poetry. Let Dea eat 
beefsteaks and mutton-cutlets; in six 
months she will be as strong as a Turk; 
marry her right off, and have a child, 
two children, three children, a long 
string of children. That’s what I call 
philosophy. Besides, one is happy, 
which is no nonsense. Having little 
ones, that’s the ticket. Have brats; 
handle them, wipe their noses, put them 
to bed, smear up theii* faces, and wash 
them off again ; let it all be going on at 
once about you; if they laugh, that’s 
well; if they squall, that’s better; to 
cry is to be alive ; look at them, suck- 
ing at six months, crawling at twelve, 
walking at two years, growing tall at 
fifteen, loving at twenty. Whoever 
has -these delights, has every thing. As 
for me, I’ve missed them, which ac- 
counts for my being a brute. The good 
God, a maker of fine poems, and who 
is the first of men-of-letters, dictated to 
his fellow-worker, Moses: Multiply! 


That is the text. Multiply, animal! 
As for the world, it is what it is ; it 
has no need of you for going along 
badly. Don’t trouble yourself con- 
cerning it. Don’t occupy yourself 
with what’s outside. Leave the hori- 
zon alone. An actor is made to be 
looked at, not to be looking. Are you 
aware of what there is outside ? — ^the 
happy by right. You, I teU you again, 
you are of the happy by chance. You 
are the pickpocket of the happiness, 
whereof they are the proprietors. 
They are legitimate; you are an in- 
truder ; you live in concubinage with 
luck. What would you, more than 
you have? So help me Shibboleth, 
the dirty feUow is a scoundrel! It’s 
none the less pleasant to multiply one’s 
self through Dea ; but such felicity is 
much like swindling. Those who have 
the good things down here, by privilege 
from up yonder, don’t approve of others 
beneath them having so much enjoy- 
ment. If they asked you, by what 
right are you happy? — you wouldn’t 
know how to answer. You have no 
patent; they have one. Jupiter, Allah, 
Vishnu, Sabaoth, no matter who, has 
given them a visa for being happy. 
Have a fear of them. Don’t meddle 
with them, so that they-^may not med- 
dle with you. Do you know, wretched 
one, what a happy one by right is? A 
terrible being is it ; it is the lord. Ah ! 
the lord; there’s one who must have 
intrigued on the devil’s unknown 
ground, before coming into the world, 
in order to enter life by that door ! 
How hard it must have been for him to 
be bom ! This is the only trouble he ever 
gave himself. But, just Heaven, what a 
job! to obtain from Destiny, that blind 
dolt, that she should make you, at the 
start, from the cradle, the master of 
men; to corrupt that office-keeper, so 
that she gives you the best place in the 
theatre ! Bead the memento, that is in 
the hut that I have put on the retired 


172 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


list ; read that breviary of my wisdom ; 
there you will see what the lord is. A 
lord — ^it is one who has every thing, 
and is every thing. A lord is one who 
exists at an elevation above his own 
proper nature ; one who, being young, 
has the rights of old age ; being old, 
the lucky chances of youth; vicious, 
the respect of good people ; a coward, 
the command of the stout-hearted; 
doing nothing, the fruits of labor; ig- 
norant, the diploma of Oxford or Cam- 
bridge ; silly, the admiration of poets ; 
ugly, the smile of women ; Thersites, 
the helmet of Achilles; a hare, the 
lion’s skin. Don’t misunderstand my 
words. I don’t say that a lord must 
necessarily be ignorant, cowardly, ugly, 
silly, and old ; I only say that he may 
be all this, without any harm to him 
therefrom. On the contrary. The lords 
are the princes. The king of England 
is only a lord, the first lord in the lord- 
ly estate. This is all; this is much. 
Kings were formerly called lords : the 
lord of Denmark, the lord of Ireland, 
the lord of the Isles. The lord of Nor- 
way has only been called king during 
three hundred years. Lucius, the first- 
known king of England, was termed by 
St. T^lesphorus my Lord Lucius, The 
lords are peers, that is to say, equals. 
Of whom ? Of the king. I do not com- 
mit the blunder of confounding the 
lords with the Parliament. The popu- 
lar assembly, which the Saxons, before 
the Conquest, entitled Wittenagemo% 
was entitled Parliamentum by the Nor- 
mans, after the Conquest. Little by 
little, the people have been pushed out 
of doors. The king’s writ convoking the 
commons, had the phrase, ad comili- 
um impendendum ; to-day they have 
it, ad comentiendum. The commons 
have the right of consenting. To say 
“ yes ” is their privilege. The peers can 
say “ no.” And the proof is, that they 
have said it. The peers can cut off the 
king’s head; the people can’t. The 


axe-stroke of Charles 1. is an encroach- 
ment — ^not upon the king, but upon 
the peers ; and the gibbeting of 
Cromwell’s carcass was rightly done. 
The lords have the power — why ? — be- 
cause they have the wealth. Who is 
there, that has turned over the leaves 
of the Doomsday-Book ? It is the proof 
that the lords hold possession of Eng- 
land ; it is the register of the subjects’ 
goods and chattels, made up under Wil- 
liam the Conqueror ; and it is in charge 
of the chancellor of the exchequer. To 
copy any thing in it, you pay four half- 
pence a line. It is a proud record. Do 
you know, that I was once dom’estic 
physician in the establishment of a lord 
who was named Marmaduke, and who 
had nine hundred thousand French 
francs for his yearly revenue? Get 
yourself out of that, you frightful idiot! 
Do you know that, with nothing but 
the rabbits of Earl Lindsay’s warrens, 
all the rabble of the Cinque Ports 
might bo fed? Meddle with them, 
therefore! AU is well-ordered there! 
Every poacher is hung. Just for two 
long downy ears that peeped out of 
his pouch, I have seen a father of six 
children hanging from the gallows. 
Such is lordship. A lord’s rabbit is 
more than a man of the good God. 
Lords there are, you scQundrel ; and we 
ought to find it good. And then, if 
we find it bad, what difference does 
that make to them ? — the people mak- 
ing objections ! Plautus himself couldn’t 
come near this, for comic effect. A 
philosopher would be jesting, if he 
counselled this poor devil of a multi- 
tude to exclaim against the breadth 
and the weight of the lords. As well 
make the caterpillar raise issue on the 
elephant’s foot. One day, I saw a hip- 
popotamus tread upon a molehill; he 
crushed it all in ; he was not to blame. 
He didn’t even know — the huge, good- 
natured mastodon — that there were 
moles. My dear feUow, among the 


173 


GWYNPLAINE HAS JUSTICE ON HIS SIDE, ETC. 


moles that are crnshed, is the hu- 
man race. Crushing is a law. And 
do you believe that the mole himself 
does not crush any thing ? He is the 
mastodon of the flesh-worm, who is 
the mastodon of the animalcula. But 
don’t let us argue it. Carriages, my 
boy, exist. The lord is inside; the 
people are under the wheel ; the wise 
man makes room. Step aside, and let 
pass. As for me, I like lords, and I 
keep out of their way. I have lived 
with one. That’s enough for embel- 
lishing my recollections. I call to 
mind his country-seat, as a glory in a 
nimbus. My dreams are of the past. 
Nothing more admirable than Marma- 
duke Lodge, for vastness, symmetrical 
beauty, rich revenues, adornments, 
and accessories of the ediflce. For the 
rest, the houses, mansions, and palaces 
of the lords, constitute a collection of 
all that is grand and magnificent in 
this flourishing kingdom. I like our 
noblemen. I thank them for being 
opulent, powerful, and prosperous. I, 
who am clothed in darkness, see with 
interest and pleasure this specimen of 
celestial blue, that is termed a lord. 
You entered Marmaduke Lodge by an 
extremely spacious court-yard, which 
formed an oblong divided into eight 
squares, enclosed with balustrades, 
that left on every side a wide, open 
road-way. There was, in the middle, 
a superb hexagonal fountain, with two 
basins, covered with a dome of exquis- 
ite workmanship, open at the top, and 
supported upon six columns. It was 
there that I was acquainted with a 
learned Frenchman, the Abb6 du Cros, 
attached to the house of the Jacobins 
in St. James’s Street. One half of the 
library of Erpenius was at Marmaduke 
Lodge, the other half being in the 
Theological Lecture - Koom at Cam- 
bridge. There did I read books, as I 
sat under the decorated portal. These 
things are, for the most part, only seen 


by a small number of curious travellers. 
Are you aware, you absurd boy, that 
the Honorable "William North, who is 
Lord Gray of Kolleston, and who sits 
fourteenth upon the barons’ bench, has 
more tall forest-trees on his hill-side, 
than you have hairs upon your horri- 
ble head-piece? Are you aware that 
Lord Norris of Kicott, which is the 
same as the Earl of Abingdon, has a 
square donjon-keep two hundred feet 
high, bearing this device, Yirtus ariete 
fortior^ which has the air of intending 
to say. Virtue is stronger than a ram^ 
but which really means, you booby. 
Courage is stronger than a war-ma- 
chine f Yes, I honor, accept, respect, 
and reverence our nobles. It is the 
lords who, together with the royal 
majesty, labor to secure and preserve 
national advantages. Their consum- 
mate wisdom shines forth in difficult 
conjunctures. The precedence over 
all — I should prefer seeing that they 
had it not. They have it. That which 
is called in Germany a prince, and in 
Spain a grandee, is called a peer in 
England and in France. As one might 
have been justified in finding this world 
sufficiently wretched, God perceived 
where the shoe pinched it, desired to 
prove that He knew how to create 
happy folks, and made lords, to satisfy 
philosophers. This bit of creation cor- 
rects the other bit, and gets the good 
God out of the scrape. For Him, it is 
a decent outlet from a false position. 
The great are great. A peer, in speak- 
ing of himself, says nos, A peer is 
plural. The king terms the peers con- 
sanguinei nostri. 

The peers have made a host of wise 
laws, amongst which is the one that 
condemns a man to death who cuts 
down a three-years’ old poplar-tree. 
Such is their supremacy, that they have 
a language of their own. In the her- 
aldic style, black, which is called “ sa- 
ble” for the mass of the well-born, is 


174 


BY TIIE KING’S COMMAND. 


termed “satiirn” for princes, and “dia- 
mond” for peers. Diamond-powder, 
starred night, is the black of the fortu- 
nate. And even among themselves 
they have nice distinctions, these migh- 
ty nobles. A baron cannot wash with 
a viscount, without his permission. Ex- 
cellent arrangements these, and pre- 
servative of nations. How fine it is for 
a people to have twenty-five dukes, five 
marquises, seventy-six earls, nine vis- 
counts, and sixty-one barons, which 
makes one hundred and seventy-six 
peers, some of whom are his Grace 
and some his Lordship! After this, 
what if there be some rags and tatters 
here and there ? All cannot be in gold. 
Rags, so be it ! Is not the purple visi- 
ble? The one compensates for the 
other. It must be that something 
should be constructed out of something. 
Well ; yes, there are the poor — a pretty 
job! They stifle the happiness of the 
potent. Why, zounds! our lords are 
our glory. The pack of hounds of 
Charles Mohun, Baron Mohun, costs as 
much of itself as the Moorgate Hospital 
for lepers, and as Christ’s Hospital, 
founded for children in 1553, by Ed- 
ward YI. Thomas Osborne, Duke of 
Leeds, spends for his liveries alone five 
thousand golden guineas a year. The 
grandees of Spain have a guardian, ap- 
pointed by the king, who keeps them 
from ruining themselves. That’s cow- 
ardly. Our lords, ours, are extrava- 
gant as well as magnificent. I like that. 
Don’t let us rail, as though we were 
envious. I am grateful for a fair vision 
that passes. I have not the light itself; 
but I have its reflection. “Reflected 
upon my ulcer,” you will say. To the 
devil with you ! I am a Job, happy in 
the contemplation of Trimalcion. Oh ! 
the lovely planet, radiant, up yonder! 
It is something to have this moonlight. 
Suppress the lords! That’s an idea 
that Orestes, all madman that he was, 
would not have dared to sustain. To 


say that lords are noxious or useless, 
this is much the same as saying that 
states must be unsettled, and that men 
are not made to live like flocks, brows- 
ing on the grass and bitten by the dog ! 
The meadow is sheared by the sheep ; 
the sheep is sheared by the shepherd. 
What more equitable? For one shear- 
er, a shearer and a half. As for me, it’s 
all the same ; I’m a philosopher, and I 
stick on to life, like a fly. Life is only 
a temporary lodging. When I think 
that Henry Bowes Howard, Earl of 
Berkshire, has in his stables twenty- 
four gala-carriages, some of which have 
harness in silver and some in gold ! 
Good heavens! I know well enough 
that everybody hasn’t twenty-four gala 
carriages ; but it is of no use to inveigh. 
Because you were cold, one night — lo 
and behold, there’s no one else but you ! 
Others also are cold and hungry. Do 
you know that, without this cold, Dea 
would not be blind; and that, if Dea 
were not blind, she wouldn’t love you ? 
Answer that, booby ! And then, if all 
the stragglers were complaining, what 
a joUy hubbub there would be ! Silence 
— ^that’s the rule. I am convinced that 
the good God orders the doomed to hold 
their peace, without which it would 
be the good God who would be doomed 
to hear a never-ending cry. The bliss 
of Olympus is in proportion to the 
silence of Cocytus. Therefore, hold 
your tongues, O people ! I myself do 
better ; I approve and I admire. Just 
now I enumerated the lords ; but two 
archbishops and four-and-twenty bish- 
ops must be added. In truth, I am 
quite touched when- 1 think of them. . 
I remember to have seen, at the tithe- 
gatherer’s of the reverend Dean of 
Raphoe — which dean was a part of the 
lordship and of the Church — a vast 
corn-stack of the finest wheat, collected 
from the peasants round about, and 
which the dean had not taken the 
trouble to have threshed. This left him 


UESUS THE POET CAEEIES AWAY UESUS THE PHILOSOPHEE. 175 


time for praying to God. Do yon know 
that Lord Marmaduke, my master, was 
Lord High Treasurer of Ireland and 
High Seneschal of the sovereignty of 
Knareshorough, in the county of York? 
Do you know that the Lord Chamber- 
lain — which is an appointment heredi- 
taiy in the family of the Dukes of An- 
caster — puts the king’s robes on him 
on the day of the coronation, and re- 
ceives for his pains forty ells of crimson 
velvet, besides the bed on which the 
king has slept ; and that the Usher of 
the Black Eod is his deputy ? I should 
like to see you make a stand against 
this — ^that the oldest viscount of Eng- 
land is the Sire Kobert Brent, created 
viscount by Henry Y. All the lords’ 
titles” indicate a sovereignty over an 
estate, Earl Rivers excepted, whose 
title is his family name. How admira- 
ble is their right to tax others, and to 
levy, for instance, as at this present 
moment, four shillings on the pound 
sterling of income, which is just con- 
tinued for a year, and all those fine 
imposts on distilled spirits, on the ex- 
cise of wine and beer, on tonnage and 
poundage, on cider, perry, mum, malt, 
and prepared barley, and on coal and a 
hundred other similar articles! Let’s 
reverence what is. The clergy itself is 
dependent on the lords. The Bishop 
of Man is the subject of the Earl of 
Derby. The lords have special wild 
beasts, that they put into their armo- 
rial bearings. As God has not made 
enough of them, they invent others. 
They have created the heraldic sanglier 
which is as much above a wild boar, as 
a boar is above a pig, and a nobleman 
above a priest. They have created the 
griffin, which is an eagle among lions 
and a lion among eagles, and which in- 
timidates the lions by his wings and 
the eagles by his mane.' They have 
the wyvern, the unicorn, the salaman- 
der, the gorgon, the Tarascon croc- 
odile, the dragon, the hippogriff. All 


this, terrifying for us, is for them 
decoration and finery. They have 
a menagerie that is called the blazon, 
and in which unknown monsters roar. 
No forest comparable to their pride, for 
the stupendousness of its prodigies. 
Their vanity is full of phantoms, stalk- 
ing about therein as in the sublimity 
of night, armed, helmeted, cuirassed, 
spurred, the staff of empire in hand, 
and saying, with grave voice: “We are 
the ancestors!” The beetles devour 
the roots, and the panoplies devour the 
people. Why not? Are we going to 
alter the laws? Lordship forms part 
of their order. Do you know that 
there is a duke in Scotland who gallops 
thirty leagues, without going off his own 
ground ? Do you know that the Lord 
Archbishop of Canterbury has an in- 
come of a million of French fi’ancs ? 
Do you know that his Majesty has for 
his civil list seven hundred thousand 
pounds sterling a year, without reck- 
oning country-seats, forests, domains, 
fiefs, tenancies, freeholds, prebends, 
tithes and rents, confiscations and fines, 
which exceed a million sterling ? They 
who are not content are hard to please. 

— Yes, murmured Gwynplaine, 
thoughtfully ; it is from the heU of the 
poor that the paradise of the rich is 
made. 

XII. 

UESUS THE POET CAEEIES AWAY 
UESUS THE PHILOSOPHER. 

TnE2f Dea came in ; he looked at her, 
and saw her only. Thus is it with 
love. One may be invaded and beset 
at a certain moment, by any thoughts 
whatsoever ; in comes the woman whom 
one loves, and abruptly puts to flight all 
that is not her own presence, with 
never a notion that she may, possibly, 
be effacing a world within us. 

Let us make one point here. In 
Glidos Conquered^ one word, monstro, 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


I'ze 

addressed to Gwynplaine, was offen- 
sive to Dea. Sometimes, with the lit- 
tle Spanish that all the world knew 
then, she took the slight liberty of sub- 
stituting quidro^ which signifies, I will 
have it so. Ursus tolerated, not with- 
out some impatience, these changes in 
the text. He would freely have said to 
Dea, as in our day Moessard to Tissot : 
“You are wanting in respect for the 
re]^ertoiT6?'' 

“ The man who laughs.” Such was 
the form that Gwynplaine’s celebrity 
had taken. His name, Gwynplaine, 
almost unknown, had disappeared under 
this nickname, as his face under the 
laugh. His popularity, like his visage, 
> was a mask. ^ 

His name, however, might be read 
upon a large bill placarded in front of 
the Green-Box, which gave to the 
crowd the following compilation, due 
to TJrsus : 

“Here may be seen Gwynplaine, 
abandoned at ten years of age, on the 
night of the 29th of January, 1690, by 
the villanous Comprachicos, on the sea- 
shore at Portland, grown up from a 
boy, and now called 

‘ THE MAX WHO LAUGHS,’ ” 

The existence of these mountebanks 
was an existence of lepers in a lazar- 
house, and of the blissful in an Atlantis. 
It was, day by day, an abrupt change 
from an alien show of the most bluster- 
ing sort, to abstraction the most com- 
. plete. Every evening, they made their 
exit from this world. It was as though 
the dead took their departure, xmder 
engagement to be born again next day. 
The actor is a revolving light-house — 
appearance, then disappearance; and 
he only lives for the public, as a phan- 
tom and a glimmer in this life of rota- 
tory flashes. 

To the plot of open ground succeeded 
monastic seclusion. So soon as the 
performance was over, while the spec- 


tators were disentangling themselves, 
and while the crowd’s hurrah of satis- 
faction was losing itself in the diver- 
gences of the streets, the Green-Box 
drew up its panel, as a fortress its 
drawbridge ; and, communication with 
the human race was cut off. On one 
side, the universe; on the other, this 
booth; and in this booth there were 
liberty, clear conscience, courage, de- 
votedness, innocence, happiness, love — 
all the constellations. 

Blindness, seeing, and deformity, be- 
loved, were seated at each other’s side, 
hand pressing hand, forehead touching 
forehead ; .though delirious, they whis- 
pered low. 

The middle compartment served two 
purposes : for the public, a theatre — for 
the actors, a dining-room. 

Ursus, always on the alert for a com- 
parison, profited by this diversity of 
uses, to liken the central compartment 
of the Green-Box to the arradash of an 
Abyssinian hut. 

Ursus counted the receipts; then 
they supped. ^ For love, every thing is 
idealized; and for lovers to eat and 
drink together gives rise to all sorts 
of sweet and furtive comminglings, that 
make a mouthful become a kiss. They 
drink ale or wine out of the same glass, 
as they might drink dew out of the 
same lily. Two souls, in a love-feast, 
have the same grace as two birds./ 
Gwynplaine helped Dea, cut up her 
morsels, poured out for her what she 
drank, drew too near her. 

— Hum! said Ursus; and he averted 
his muttering, which ended, in spite of 
himself, in a smile. 

The wolf, under the table, was eating 
his supper, inattentive to whatever was 
not bone. 

Vinos and Fibi shared the repast, 
but were rather in the way. These two 
vagabonds, half-savage and still scared, 
spoke their own jargon together. 

At last Dea reentered the women’s 


THE TAHOASTEE INN. 


quarters with Fibi and Yinos. Ursus 
went to chain up Homo under the 
Green-Box; and Gwynplaine looked 
after the horses, the lover .becoming a 
groom, as though he had been one of 
Homer’s heroes, or one hf Charle- 
magne’s paladins. At midnight, all 
were asleep, except the wolf, who, 
under a strong sense of his responsibili- 
ty, kept one eye open. 

The next day at dawn, they met 
again, and breakfasted together, gener- 
ally on hani and tea — ^tea, in England, 
dates from 1678. Then Hea, according 
to the Spanish custom, and by advice 
of TJrsus, who thought her delicate, 
went to sleep again for some hours, 
while Gwynplaine and Ursus were oc- 
cupied with all the little details, with- 
in and without, that are required in 
wandering life. 

It was seldom that Gwynplaine 
strolled about outside of the Green- 
Box, unless on unfrequented roads and 
in solitary spots. In towns, he only 
went out at night, hidden by a broad 
slouched hat, so as not to make his 
face familiar in the street. 

He was only to be seen, with uncov- 
ered visage, on the stage. 

Furthermore, the Green-Box had not 
much frequented the towns. Gwyn- 
plaine, at twenty-four, had hardly seen 
one larger than the Cinque Ports. Still, 
his renown went on increasing. It be- 
gan to overtop the populace, and it 
mounted higher up. Among the ama- 
teurs of foreign wonders, and the run- 
ners after curiosities and prodigies, it 
was known that an extraordinary mask 
was in existence somewhere, in a wan- 
dering condition of life, now here, now 
there. He was talked about and 
searched for, and “Where is he? ” was 
asked concerning him. “ The Man 
Who Laughs ” was becoming decidedly 
famous. A certain lustre was re- 
flected, from him, upon' Chaos Con- 
quered. 


To such extent that, one day, Ursus, 
t ambitious, exclaimed : 

— We must ^0 to London. 


■ BOOK III. 

OPENING OF THE FISSURE. 

I. 

THE TADOASTEE INN. 

At this period London had only one 
bridge, London Bridge, with houses 
upon it. This bridge connected Lon- 
don \^ith Southwark, a suburb paved 
and gravelled with pebbles from the 
Thames, all in narrow streets and lanes, 
in parts very much confined, and com- 
prising, like the city, a mass of build- 
ings, habitations, and wooden hovels — 
a combustible jumble that fire might 
ravage at discretion. This had been 
proved in 1666. 

Southwark was then pronounced 
Soudric : in these days tliey call it 
Sousourc., or nearly so. For the rest, 
an excellent way of pronouncing Eng- 
Jish names is not to pronounce them 
at all. Thus, for Southampton, say 
\Stpntn. 

That was the time when Chatham 
was pronounced Je faime. 

The Southwark of those days resem- 
bled the Southwark of to-day, as Yau- 
girard resembles Marseilles. It was a 
borough ; it is a town. Nevertheless, 
there was considerable activity there in 
the way of navigation. Into a long 
Cyclopean wall bordering the Thames 
were fastened rings, whereto the river 
barges were moored. This wall was 
called Efiroc’s Wall or Effroc-Stone. 
York, when it was Saxon, was called 
Efii'oc. The story went, that a duke of 
Effroc had been drowned at the foot of 
this wall. The water there was, in fact. 


12 


178 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


deep enougli for a duke. At low water 
there Avere still six good fathoms. The 
excellence of this little anchorage drew 
thither sea-going vessels ; and the round- 
bellied Dutch galliot, called La Vograat^ 
was habitually moored to the Eflfrpc- 
Stone. Once a week the Vograat 
made the direct voyage from London 
to Kotterdam, or from Kotterdam to 
London. Other craft started twice a 
day, for Deptford, for Greenwich, or 
for Gravesend, going down by one tide 
and coming up by the other. The 
passage to Gravesend, although twenty 
miles, was made in six hours. 

The Vograat was of a model seen 
only nowadays in marine museums. 
The galliot was something of a junk. 
At that time, while France was copy- 
ing Greece, Holland was copying China. 
The Vograat^ a heavy two-masted hull, 
was divided by vertical water-tight 
partitions, giving a very deep cabin 
amidships, and was low-decked forward 
and aft, like the iron turret-ships of our 
time. This was an advantage, inasmuch 
as it lessened the hold of a sea shipped 
in bad weather ; but an inconvenience, 
as the want of bulwarks exposed the 
crew to its force. There was nothing 
to keep a man on board who chanced 
to fall. Thence frequent accidents and 
loss of life, which caused this mode of 
building to be abandoned. The galliot 
Vograat traded direct with Holland, 
not touching even at Gravesend. 

An old cornice in stone — rock as much 
as masonry — ran along the lower part of 
tlie Effroc-Stone, and, being available 
at any time of tide, facilitated commu- 
nication with the craft moored to the 
wall. The wall, at certain distances, 
was cut through by stairways. It 
marked the southern point of South- 
wark. An embankment gave passers- 
by the means of leaning upon the top of 
the Effroc-Stone, as upon the parapet 
of a quay. The Thames was visible 
from it. On the other side of the water 


London ended. There was nothing but 
fields. 

Higher up the stream than the Effroc- 
Stone, at the bend of the river nearly 
opposite St. James’s Palace, behind 
Lambeth House, not far from the pub- 
lic walk, then called Foxhall (probably 
Vauxhall), there was — between a pot- 
tery where porcelain was made, and 
certain glass-works for the manufacture 
of colored bottles — one of those plots of 
waste and grass-grown ground, formerly 
called in France cultures and mails^ 
and in England bowling-greens. From 
bowling-green, green turf for rolling 
balls, we have made boulingrin. This 
sward we have now in our houses — only 
we plant it on a table; it is in cloth 
instead of sod; and it gives rise to the 
name billiards. 

Beyond this we cannot see why, hav- 
ing boulevard (bowl-green), which is 
the same word as bowling-green^ we 
should have given ourselves boulingrin. 
It is surprising that so grave a person-. 
..age as the dictionary should indulge in 
these useless luxuries. 

The Southwark bowling-green was 
called Tarrinzeau-Field, from having 
formerly belonged to the Barons Hast- 
ings, who are Barons Tarrinzeau and 
Mattchline. From the Lords Hastings 
the Tarrinzeau-Field had passed to the 
Lords Tadcaster, who had laid it out for 
a public resort, as, at a later period, a 
Duke of Orleans laid out the Palais- 
Eoyal. Then the Tarrinzeau-Field had 
become a common, and was parochial 
property. 

The Tarrinzeau-Field was a sort of 
permanent fair -ground, encumbered 
with jugglers, acrobats, merry-andrews, 
and itinerant musicians, and was con- 
tinually filled with foolish people, who 
came hither to “look at the devil,” ac- 
cording to the phrase of Archbishop 
Sharpe. To look at the devil is to go 
to the play. 

Several inns, that took in, and sent 


OUT-OF-DOOR ELOQUENCE. 


179 


forth their public to these strolling 
theatres, were open on this spot that 
kept holiday all the year round, and 
prospered upon it. These inns were 
simply covered-in stalls, inhabited only 
during the day. In the evening, the 
tavern-keeper put the key of the tavern 
into his pocket and went away. One 
only of these inns was a house. There 
was no other lodging-place on all the 
bowling-green, the sheds of the fair- 
ground being always liable to disappear 
from moment to moment, in view of the 
absence of ties and the vagabondage of 
all these mountebanks. A life without 
root is that of gypsies. 

This inn, called The Tadcaster Inn, 
from the name of the old lords — rather 
a public-house than a tavern, and rather 
a hostelry than a public-house — had a 
gateway and a tolerably large court- 
yard. 

The gateway, opening from the court- 
yard upon the public ground, was the 
proper entrance to the Tadcaster public- 
house, and had at one side a special- 
door by which there was a way in. To 
say special is to say preferred. This 
low door was the only one, through 
which people passed. It opened into 
the drinking-shop, properly speaking, 
which was a large, besmoked, and 
scrubby room, with a low ceiling, and 
set out with tables. It -^yas surmounted 
by a window on the first floor, from the 
iron bars of which the sign-board of 
the inn was adjusted and hung. The 
main door, barred and bolted for good 
and all, remained shut. 

To get into the court-yard, it was 
necessary to pass through the drinking- 
shop. 

There were, in the Tadcaster Inn, a 
master and a boy. The master was 
called Master Nicless ; the boy was called 
Govicum. Master Nicless — Nicolas 
without doubt, which becomes Nicless 
in English pronunciation — was a wid- 
ower, miserly and timid, and holding 


the law in respect. Otherwise, having 
bushy eyebrows and hairy hands. As 
for the lad of fourteen, who served the 
drink and answered to the name of 
Govicum, he was a merry, loutish chap, 
with an apron. His hair was cropped 
short — a sign of servitude. 

He slept on the ground floor, in a 
cell, wherein they had formerly kept a 
dog. This cell had a small window 
made dormer-fashion, that looked out 
upon the bowling-green. 

II. 

OUT-OF-DOOR ELOQUENCE. 

One evening, when there was a high 
wind and it was pretty cold, and when 
there was every reason in the world for 
hurrying along the streets, a man who 
was pursuing his way through the Tar- 
rinzeau-Field, under the wall of the 
Tadcaster public-house, suddenly stop- 
ped. It was toward the close of the 
winter of 1705. The man, whose dress 
bespoke him a sailor, was of good air 
and of fine figure, as is prescribed for 
folks at court, and is not forbidden for 
common people. Why had he stopped ? 
To listen. To what was he listening ? 
To a voice that was speaking probably 
withinside a court-yard, on the other 
side of the wall — a voice somewhat 
senile, but nevertheless so loud that it 
reached the passers-by in the street. 
At the same time, the rustle of a crowd 
was audible in the enclosure whence 
the voice harangued. The voice was 
saying : 

. — Men and women of London, here 
I am ! I congratulate you heartily on 
being English. You are a great people. 
I say more ; you are a great populace. 
Your blows of the fist are finer than 
your sword-strokes. You have a good 
appetite. Yours is the nation that eats 
others. Magnificent function. This 
gulping down the world classes England 


180 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


apart. In policy and pliilosopliy, in 
handling colonies, populations, and 
trades, and in the will to do just such 
iU to others as is good for yourselves, 
you stand alone, and are wonderful. 
The moment approaches when there 
will he two placards over the earth; 
on one will be read: Men's Side; on 
the other will be read : Englishmen^ 
Side. I make this declaration for your 
glory — I, who am neither Englishman 
nor man, having the honor to be a 
bear. Further than this, I am a doc- 
tor. This accords with the other. 
Gentlemen, I teach. What? Two 
sorts of things — ^those that I know, 
and those that I don’t know. I sell 
drugs, and I give away ideas. Draw 
near, and listen. Science asks for your 
company. Open your ear ; if it is 
small, it will hold but little truth ; if 
it is large, abundance of stupidity will 
enter therein. Attention, then ! I 
teach the Pseudodoxia Epidemica. I 
have a comrade who makes people 
laugh ; I make them think. We live 
in the same box, the laughter being 
equally well-born with the knowledge. 
When Democritus was asked: “How 
do you know ? ” he replied; “ I laugh.” 
And I, if I am asked: “Why do you 
laugh?” I shall answer: “I know.” 
However, I do not laugh. I am the 
rectifier of popular errors. I under- 
take the clearing-up of your under- 
standings. They are soiled. God per- 
mits the people to deceive themselves 
and to be deceived. It is of no use to 
have mock-modesty. I confess fi-ankly 
that I believe in God, even when He 
is against me. Only, when I meet with 
filth — and errors are filth — I sweep it 
away. How do I know what I know ? 
That’s my afiair alone. Every one gets 
knowledge where he can. Lactantius 
propounded questions to a Virgil’s head 
in bronze, that answered him. Sylves- 
ter II. held parleys with birds. Did 
the birds speak ? Did the popq chirp ? 


Questions. The dead child of the Kab- 
bi Eleazar conversed with St. Augus- 
tine. Between ourselves, I doubt all 
these facts, except the last. The dead 
child spoke ; very well ; but he had at 
his tongue’s end a golden plate, where- 
on were graven divers constellations. 
Therefore, he cheated. The fact ex- 
plains itself. You perceive my modera- 
tion. I separate the true from the 
false. Look you ; here are some other 
errors that you,' poor common people, 
share, without doubt, and from which 
I deshe to set you free. Discorides be- 
lieved that there was a god in henbane ; 
Chrysippus, in ’ Josephus, in 

the root lauras; Homer, in the plant 
inoly. All deceived themselves. That 
which is in these herbs is not a god ; it 
is a demon. I have verified it. It is 
not true that the serpent that tempted 
Eve had, like Cadmus, a human face. 
Garcias de Horto, Cadamosto, and Jean 
Hugo, Archbishop of Treves, deny that, 
for capturing an elephant, it is sufficient 
to saw down a tree. I incline to their 
way of thinking. Citizens, the efforts 
of Lucifer are the cause of erroneous 
opinions. Under the reign of such a 
prince, meteors of error and perdition 
must appear. Claudius Fulcher, O 
people, did not die because the fowls 
refused to come out of the hen-roost ; 
the truth is, that Lucifer, having fore- 
seen the death of Claudius Fulcher, 
took care to prevent those creatures 
from eating. Let Beelzebub have given 
to the Emperor Vespasian the power 
of straightening up the halt, and of 
giving sight to the blind, by touching 
them; it was an action praiseworthy 
in itself, but one of which the motive 
was culpable. Gentlemen, mistrust the 
pretenders to science, who search into 
the roots of wall-moss and white briony, 
and who make eye-salve with honey and 
cock’s blood. Learn how to see clearly 
into lies. It is not quite accurate "that 
Orion was born of a natural want of 


OUT-OF-DOOR ELOQUENCE. 


181 


Jupiter; the truth is, it was Mercury 
who produced this star in this man- 
ner. It is not true that Adam had 
a nayel. When St. George killed the 
dragon, he did not have a saint’s daugh- 
ter near him. St. Jerome did not have 
a clock upon the mantel-piece in his 
cabinet ; in the first place, because, be- 
ing in a grotto, he had no cabinet ; sec- 
ondly, because he had no mantel-piece; 
thirdly, because clocks were not then 
invented. Let us set things right ! Let 
us set things right! O gentlefolks 
who listen to me, if any one tells you 
that whoever smells at the herb valerian 
has a lizard engendered in his brain, 
that in putrefaction the ox changes into 
bees and the horse into hornets, that 
man weighs more when dead than when 
alive, that a he-goat’s blood dissolves 
the emerald, that a caterpillar and a fiy 
and a spider seen on the same tree are 
signs of famine and war and pestilence, 
that the falling-sickness is cured by 
means of a worm that is found in the 
roebuck’s head — don’t believe a word 
of it ; these are errors. But here are 
truths; the skin of the sea-calf is a 
protection against the thunderbolt ; the 
toad lives upon earth, which is the rea- 
son why a stone grows in his head; 
the rose of Jericho blossoms on Christ- 
mas eve ; snakes cannot bear the shade 
of the ash-tree; the elephant has no 
joints, and is forced to sleep standing 
up, leaning against a tree ; let a toad 
hatch a serpent-egg, and you will have 
a scorpion that wiU make you a sala- 
mander; a blind man recovers his sight 
by placing one hand on the left side of 
the altar, and the other hand over his 
eyes ; virginity does not prevent mater- 
nity. Good people, sustain yourselves 
upon these proofs. Whereupon, you 
can believe in God after two fashions 
— either as thirst believes in the or- 
ange, or as the donkey believes in the 
whip. Kow, I am going to present my 
establishment to you. 


Here a pretty heavy gust of wind 
shook the window-casings and shutters 
of the inn, which was an isolated house. 
This caused, as it were, a prolonged 
murmur up above. The orator waited 
for a moment, and then went on : 

— Interruption. So be it. Speak, 
0 North wind! Gentlemen, I am not 
annoyed. The wind is talkative, as all 
solitary persons are. No one keeps 
him company, up yonder. " Therefore, 
he babbles. I resume my thread. You 
look here upon associated artists. We 
are four. A lupo principium. I begin 
with my friend, who is a wolf. He 
makes no secret of it. Look at him. 
He is trained, grave, and sagacious. 
Providence intended for a while, prob- 
ably, to make of him a university doc- 
tor ; but, for that, one must be some- 
thing of a simpleton, and he is not. I 
may add that he is without prejudices, 
and by no means aristocratic. He keeps 
company with dogs — he, who, in his na- 
tive woods, was their fiercest enemy. 
His dauphins, if there be any, probably 
combine with grace the yelping of their 
mother and the howling of their sire. For 
he does howl. Howling is requisite with 
men. He barks also, out of condescension 
to civilization. Magnanimous softening 
down ! Homo is a dog made perfect. 
Let us respect the dog. The dog — what 
a comic beast !— whose sweat is on his 
tongue, and whose smile is in his tail. 
Gentlemen, Homo equals in wisdom, 
and surpasses in frankness, the hairless 
wolf of Mexico, the admirable Xoloit- 
zeniski. Let me add that he is humble. 
He has the modesty of a wolf, that is 
useful to human creatures. He is ready 
to help, and charitable, in a silent way. 
His left paw does not know the good 
action done by his right paw. Such 
are his merits. Of this other, my sec- 
ond friend, I will only say one word : 
he is a monster. You will admire him. 
He was formerly abandoned by pirates, 
on the border of the savage ocean. This 


182 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


one is a blind girl. Is that an excep- 
tion? KTo. "We are all blind. The 
miser is blind ; he sees gold, and does 
not see wealth. The prodigal is blind; 
he sees the beginning, and does not see 
the end. The coquette is blind; she 
does not see her wrinkles. The scholar 
is blind ; he does not see his ignorance. 
The honest man is blind ; he does not 
see the scamp. The scamp is blind; he 
does not see God. For myself, I am 
blind ; I speak, and I do not see that 
you are deaf. This blind girl here, who 
accompanies us, is a mysterious priest- 
ess. V esta might have confided her light- 
ed brand to her. She has spots in her 
character, gentle and obscure, like the 
intervals that open in a sheep’s fleece. 
I believe, without affirming it, that she 
is a king’s daughter. A laudable mis- 
trust is the sage’s attribute. As for me, 
I reason, and I prescribe. I think, and 
I dress wounds. CMrurgus sum, I 
cure fevers, miasma, and plagues. Near- 
ly all our phlegmasies and sufferings 
are issues, and, if well looked after, 
would rid us comfortably of other ills 
that would be worse. Notwithstanding 
this, I would not advise you to have an 
anthrax, otherwise called carbuncle. It 
is a foolish disorder, that does no good. 
People die of it ; but that’s all. I am 
neither unlettered, nor a boor. I honor 
eloquence and poetry, and I live in in- 
nocent intimacy with those goddesses. 
Let me close with a bit of counsel. 
Gentlemen and gentlewomen, cultivate 
within you, from the side whence ,com- 
eth the light, virtue, modesty, probity, 
justice, and love. With this, everyone 
here below may have his little pot of 
flowers in his window. My lords and 
gentlemen, I have done. The show is 
about to begin. 

The man, a sailor probably, who was 
listening outside, entered into the low 
drinking - room of the inn, passed 
through it, paid the money that was 
asked of him, penetrated into a court- 


yard filled with people, perceived at the 
lower end of the court a caravan on 
wheels, wide open, and saw upon the 
boards an old man clad in a bear’s skin, 
a young man who seemed to have on a 
mask, a blind girl, and a wolf. 

— By Heaven ! exclaimed he, here is 
an admirable set. 

III. 

WHEEEIN THE PASSEE-BY EEAPPEAES. 

The Green-Box, as you have already 
perceived, had reached London, and 
was established at Southwark. TJrsus 
had been attracted by the bowling- 
green, which possessed this advantange 
— ^the fair was never suspended, not 
even in winter. 

It had been agreeable to Hrsus to see 
the dome of St. Paul’s. 

London, take it all in all, is a city 
that has some good in it. It was a bold 
thing to dedicate a cathedral to St. 
Paul. The really sainted cathedral is 
St. Peter’s. St. Paul is suspected of 
imagination; and, in ecclesiastical af- 
fairs, imagination means heresy. St. 
Paul is only a saint with extenuating 
circumstances. He only entered heaven 
by the artists’ door. 

A cathedral is a symbol. St. Peter’s 
indicates Pome, the city of dogma ; St. 
Paul’s stands for London, the city of 
schism. 

trf'sus, whose philosophy had such 
wide-spreading arms that it embraced 
every thing, was a man to appreciate 
these nice distinctions. His attraction 
to London originated perhaps in a cer- 
tain preference for St. Paul. 

The large court-yard of the Tadcaster 
Inn had determined Hrsus’ selection. 
The Green-Box seemed to have been 
foreseen by this yard. It was a theatre 
ready made. The yard was square, 
with buildings on three of its sides, and 
a wall opposite the main one, against 


WHEREIN THE PASSEE-BY REAPPEARS. 


183 


wtiicli the Green-Box was backed. A 
deep wooden gallery, covered with a shed, 
and supported on posts, that served for 
entrance to the rooms on the first floor, 
ran along the three sides of the inner 
facade, with two turns at right angles. 
The windows of the ground-floor made 
lower boxes ; the pavement of the yard 
made the pit; and the gallery made 
the first circle. The Green-Box, ranged 
against the wall, had before it this 
play house laid out. It was much like 
the Globe Theatre, where Othello^ King 
Lear^ and the Tempest were performed. 

In a corner, behind the Green-Box, 
there was a stable. 

Ursus had made his arrangements 
with the tavern-keeper. Master Nicless, 
who, in view of the respect due to the 
law, only admitted the wolf on his 
paying higher terms. The placard: 
Gwynplaixe — The Man Who Latjohs, 
unhooked from the Green-Box, had 
been hung up near the sign-board of 
the inn. The drinking-room had, you 
remember, an inner door that opened 
upon the court-yard. By the side of 
this door there was improvised — out of 
a cask split in half — a small lodge for 
the office-keeper, who was sometimes 
Fibi, sometimes Vinos. It was almost 
as it is nowadays. Whoever entered 
paid. Underneath the placard. The 
Man Who ‘Laughs, a board, painted 
white, was hung from two nails. It 
bore, charcoaled in large letters, the 
title of Ursus’ great piece. Chaos Con- 
quered. 

In the middle of the first circle, ex- 
actly opposite the Green-Box, a com- 
partment, the principal entrance to 
which was through one of the windows, 
had been partitioned off and reserved 
for the nobility. 

It was large enough to hold ten spec- 
tators, in two rows. 

— We are in London, said Ursus. 
We must provide for the gentry. 

He had made them furnish this box 


with the best chairs from the inn, and 
place in the centre a large arm-chair 
of Utrecht velvet, with gold spots of 
cherry pattern, in the event of some 
alderman’s wife coming. 

The performances had begun. 

Very soon the crowd flocked in. 

But the compartment for the gran- 
dees remained empty. 

With that exception, the success was 
such as no mountebank’s memory could 
parallel. All Southwark rushed in a 
mass to admire “ The Man Who Laughs.” 

The merry-andrews and* jugglers of 
the Tarrinzeau-Field were frightened 
at Gwynplaine. The effect was that 
of a hawk lighting upon a cage of gold- 
finches, and pecking at their seed- 
trough. Gwynplaine ate up their pub- 
lic for them. 

Besides the small fry of fellows who 
swallowed swords and who grinned 
their grimaces, there were some veri- 
table shows upon the bowling-green. 
There was a women’s circus, resound- 
ing from morn till eve with a magnifi- 
cent jingle of all sorts of instruments, 
psalteries, drums, rebecs, bells, reeds, 
lutes, German horns, shepherds’ pipes, 
oaten pipes, bagpipes, and flageolets. 
There, under a large round tent, were 
tumblers who are not equalled by our 
traversers of the Pyrenees — Bulma, 
Bordenave, and Meylogna — who go 
down from the peak of Pierrefitte to the 
table-land of Lima9on, which is almost 
the same thing as falling. There was a 
travelling menagerie, wherein was seen 
a comic tiger, that, being constantly 
whipped by a keeper, tried to snap at 
the whip and to swallow the lash. 
This comedian of jaw and claw was 
himself eclipsed. 

Curiosity, applause, receipts, crowd 
— “The Man Who Laughs ” carried all 
before him. It was done in the twink- 
ling of an eye. There was nothing else 
but the Green-Box. 

— Chaos conquered is chaos con- 


184 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


queror, said TJrsus, taking to himself 
half the credit of Gwynplaine’s success, 
and fitting the cap to himself, as they 
say in strolling players’ jargon. 

Gwynplaine’s success was prodigious. 
Still, it remained local. Kenown has 
trouble in crossing the water. Shake- 
speare’s name took a hundred and thir- 
ty years to come from England into 
France ; the water is a wall ; and if V ol- 
taire — though he much regretted it sub- 
sequently — had not made Shakespeare 
mount over his back, Shakespeare, 
at this time of day, would perhaps be 
on the other side of the wall, in Eng- 
land, imprisoned in his insular glory. 

Gwynplaine’s fame did not cross 
over London Bridge. It did not take 
the dimensions of a grand town echo. 
At least, in the first instance. But 
Southwark may satisfy a clown’s ambi- 
tion. IJrsus said : — The receipt-bag, 
one can see, begins to enlarge great- 
ly. 

They played Utbub Bursus ; then 
Chaos Conquered. 

In the intervals, Ursus did justice to 
his title of Engastrimythe.^ and mani- 
fested transcendent powers of ventril- 
oquism. He imitated every voice that 
offered itself from the audience, whether 
in song or cry, so as to astound by its 
resemblance the singer or the crier 
himself; sometimes he reproduced the 
hum of the crowd ; and he panted, as 
though he himself alone had been a 
herd of people. Eemarkable talents, 
these. 

In addition, he made speeches, as 
you have just seen, like Cicero, sold 
drugs, prescribed for maladies, and even 
cured the ailing. 

Southwark was charmed. 

IJrsus was satisfied with the applauses 
of Southwark, but he was not surprised 
thereat. 

— These are the ancient Trinobantes, 
said he. 

And he added : 


— "Whom I do not confound, for re- 
finement of taste, with the Atrobates 
who have peopled Berkshire, the Bel- 
gians who have inhabited Somerset- 
shire, and the Parisians who founded 
York. 

At each representation, the inn-yard, 
transformed into a pit, was fiUed with 
a tatterdemalion and enthusiastic au- 
dience. It was composed of boatmen, 
chairmen, shipwrights, bargemen from 
river barges, sailors freshly landed, and 
spending their pay in good cheer and 
among the girls. There were tall foot- 
men, ruflians, and blackguards, the last- 
named being soldiers condemned for 
some breach of discipline to wear their 
red coats turned so as to show the black 
lining, and thence called blackguards, 
whence we have borrowed 'blagueurs. 
All this streamed from the street 
into the theatre, and streamed back 
from the theatre into the drinking- 
room. The emptied cans did no harm 
to the success. 

Among the people whom it is the 
custom to call the scum, there was one 
man taUer than the rest, of bigger build, 
stronger, less poverty-stricken, broader 
in the shoulders, dressed in the com- 
monest style, but not tattered, a frantic 
admirer, forcing his way with his fists, 
hare-brained, swearing, shouting, ban- 
tering, by no means dirty, and at need 
giving a black eye or treating to a 
bottle. 

This frequenter was the passer-by, 
whose outburst of enthusiasm was 
heard not long since. 

The connoisseur, fascinated at once, 
had immediately adopted “The Man 
Who Laughs.” He did not come to 
every performance. But, when he did 
come, he it was who drew the public 
on ; applause was changed into accla- 
mation; success went up — not to the 
frieze, for there was none, but — to the 
clouds of which there were some. 
These clouds, in fact, for lack of a 


OPPOSITES EEATERNIZE IN HATE. 


185 


ceiling, sometimes rained upon TJrsus’ 
masterpiece. 

All this to such extent, that Ursus 
noted this man, and Gwynplaine looked 
at him. 

He was a spirited friend, the un- 
known man whom they had there 1 

Ursus and Gwynplaine desired to 
make his acquaintance, or at least to 
know who he was. 

Ursus, one evening — from the slips, 
that is to say, from the kitchen-door 
of the Green-Box — having by chance 
Master Nicless, the innkeeper, near 
him, pointed out this man amid the 
crowd, and asked : 

— Do you know that man ? 

— Certainly. 

— Who is he ? 

— A sailor. 

— What’s his name? said Gwyn- 
plaine, breaking in. 

— Tom- Jim- Jack, replied the host. 

Then, as he went down the step- 
ladder behind the Green-Box to re- 
enter the inu. Master Nicless let fall 
this reflection, more profound than ap- 
pears at first sight : 

— What a pity that he isn’t a lord! 
He would make a famous scamp ! 

For the rest, although installed in a 
public-house, the Green-Box party had 
in no respect modified its habits ; and 
it maintained its isolation. With the 
exception of exchanging a few words 
now and then with the innkeeper, 
they did not mix themselves up with 
the inhabitants of the inn, permanent 
or transient, and they continued to live 
together apart. 

Since they had been at Southwark, 
Gwynplaine had fallen into the habit — 
after the performance and the supper 
of man and horse, and when Ursus and 
Dea had gone to bed on their respective 
sides — of going out, between eleven 
o’clock and midnight, to breathe a 
little fresh air on the bowling-green. 
Something vague, that there is in the 


mind, prompts to nocturnal walks and 
starry saunterings. Youth is a mys- 
terious hiding of time; that is why one 
walks at night, willingly though aim- 
less. At that hour, there was no one 
on the fair-ground ; or, at most, there 
was only the occasional reel of a 
drunken man, that made oscillating 
outlines in dark recesses. The empty 
taverns were shut ; the low room of 
the Tadcaster Inn grew indistinct, 
showing scarcely in any corner a last 
candle lighting a last toper. A misty 
glimmer peered out through the casings 
of the inn-door standing ajar ; and 
Gwynplaine, pensive, contented, dream- 
ing, happy in a dim celestial bliss, 
walked up and down before this half- 
opened door. Of what was he think- 
ing? Of Dea, of nothing, of every 
thing, of the measureless. He did not 
stray far from the inn, held hack, as by 
a thread, in Dea’s neighborhood. It 
was enough for him to take a few steps 
beyond it. 

Then he went in, found aU the 
Green-Box asleep, and went to sleep 
himself. 

IV. 

OPPOSITES FEATEEXIZE IN HATE. 

Success is not liked, especially by 
those whose fall it involves. It is sel- 
dom that the eaten adores the eater. 
“ The Man Who Laughs ” had decidedly 
made a sensation. The mountebanks 
round about were indignant. A theat- 
rical success is a siphon ; it pumps in 
the crowd, and makes a void elsewhere. 
The shop over the way is aghast. A 
fall in the neighboring receipts corre- 
sponded immediately, as we have ob- 
served, with the increase of the Green- 
Box receipts. All at once, the shows, 
thriving up to that time, stood still. 
It was like a water-mark, marking itself, 
in a double sense, but with perfect con- 


186 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


cordance — ^the rise here, the fall there. 
At all theatres these effects of tide are 
known ; it is up with this one, only on 
condition that it is down with that 
one. The alien throng, that exhib- 
ited its talents and its flourish of 
trumpets on the surrounding hoards, 
seeing itself ruined by “ The Man Who 
Laughs,” was in despair, hut, at the 
same time, was dazzled. All the do- 
tards, all the clowns, all the jugglers, 
envied Gwynplaine. There’s a fellow 
lucky enough to have a wild-heast’s 
muzzle I The female buffoons and rope- 
dancers, who had pretty children, eyed 
them angrily, as they pointed to Gwyn- 
plaine, and said: “What a pity that 
you haven’t such a face as that I ” Some 
of them heat their little ones, exas- 
perated at flnding them handsome. 
More than one, if she had known the 
secret, would have got up her son in 
the style of Gwynplaine. An angelic 
head, that brings in nothing, is not 
worth a devil’s face, that is lucrative. 
One day, the mother of a child, that 
was a cherub of pretty ways and 
played Cupids, was heard to exclaim : 
“ They have missed it in our children. 
There’s only this Gwynplaine that is a 
hit.” Then, shaking her flst at her 
son, she added: “If I had but your 
father here, I’d pick a bone with 
him I ” 

Gwynplaine was a hen that lays 
golden eggs. What a marvellous phe- 
nomenon ! There was but this one cry 
in all the booths. The mountebanks, in 
ecstasies and exasperated, ground their 
teeth as they looked at Gwynplaine. 
Eage, that can admire, is called envy. 
Then it yells. They tried to break up 
ChaoB Conquered^ clubbed 'together, 
whistled, groaned, hissed. This was a 
pretext for Ursus making Hortensian 
harangues to the populace, and an oc- 
casion for friend Tom -Jim -Jack ad- 
ministering some of those fisticuffs that 
reestablish order. Tom- Jim- Jack’s flsti- 


cuffs brought to a point Gwynplaine’s 
notice of him and Ursus’ esteem. But 
remotely, however ; for the Green-Box 
party was sufficient for itself in itself, 
and held aloof from every thing. As 
for Tom-Jim-Jack, that leader of the 
rabble produced the effect of a sort of 
supreme bully, without ties, without 
intimacies, a breaker of windows, a 
ringleader among men, everybody’s 
comrade, and nobody’s companion. 

This unchaining of envy against 
Gwynplaine was not inclined to give it 
up, for a few slaps in the face from Tom- 
Jim-Jack. The hisses having miscar- 
ried, the mountebanks of the Tarrinzeau- 
Field got up a petition. They addressed 
themselves to the authorities. That is 
the customary progression. Against a 
success that annoys us, we first raise a 
mob, and then crave aid from the ma- 
gistracy. 

The clergy united with the jugglers. 
“ The Man Who Laughs ” had proved a 
blow at preaching. The void was not 
made in the booths alone, but in the 
churches. The chapels in the five par- 
ishes of Southwark had no more congre- 
gations. They forsook the sermon, to go 
to Gwynplaine. Chaos Conquered^ the 
Green-Box, “The Man Who Laughs,” 
all these abominations of Baal carried 
the day against pulpit eloquence. The 
voice that cries in the desert, mx cla- 
mantis in deserto^ is not well pleased, 
and willingly adjures the government. 
The pastors of the five parishes com- 
plained to the Bishop of London, who 
complained to her Majesty. 

The appeal of the mountebanks was 
based upon religion. They declared it 
outraged. They pointed out Gwyn- 
plaine as a sorcerer, and Ursus as im- 
pious. 

The clergy, on their part, invoked so- 
cial order. They laid great stress upon 
the violated acts of Parliament, leaving 
orthodoxy aside. This was more ma- 
levolent ; for it was then the epoch of 


OPPOSITES FRATEENIZE IN HATE. 


Mr. Locke — dead scarcely six montlis, 
on the 28th of October, 1704 — and the 
skepticism was beginning that Boling- 
broke was to breathe into Yoltaire. At 
a later period Wesley was to restore the 
Bible, as Loyola restored the papacy. 

In this manner the Green-Box was 
battered in breach on two sides — by the 
mountebanks in the name of the Pen- 
tateuch, by the chaplains in the name 
of police regulations. On one side 
Heaven, on the other side the depart- 
ment of public ways — ^the clergy hold- 
ing for the department, and the buffoons 
for Heaven. The Green-Box was de- 
nounced by the priests as a nuisance, 
and by the merry-andrews as a sacri- 
lege. } 

W as there any pretext in it ? Did it 
expose itself? Yes. What was its 
offence ? This : it possessed a wolf. In 
England, a wolf is an outlaw. The 
dog — let him be ; the wolf — no. Eng- 
land recognizes the dog that barks, and 
not the dog that howls — nice distinc- 
tion between the back-yard and the 
forest. The rectors and vicars of the 
five Southwark parishes recalled, in 
their application, the numerous royal 
and parliamentary decrees that put the 
wolf beyond the pale of law. They 
asked for some such conclusion as the 
imprisonment of Gwynplaine, and the 
putting the wolf in the pound, or at least 
his ejectment. Question of public in- 
terest, risk for passers-by, etc.. And, 
thereupon, they appealed to the faculty. 
They cited the verdict of the College of 
Eighty Physicians of London, a learned 
body that dates from Henry YIII., that 
has its seal as the state has, that ele- 
vates the sick to the dignity of being 
amenable to their tribunal, that has the 
right to imprison those who infringe its 
laws and contravene its ordinances, and 
that, among other authentications useful 
to the citizens’ health, has put beyond 
doubt this fact, deduced from science : 
If a wolf sees a man first, the man be- 


187 

comes hoarse for life. Furthermore, 
one may be bitten. 

Homo, therefore, was the pretext. 

Ursus had wind of these plots through 
the innkeeper. He was uneasy. He 
dreaded those two claws, police and 
justice. To be afraid of the magistrates, 
it is sufficient to be afraid ; there is no 
need to be culpable. Ursus had little 
desire for contact with sheriffs, pro- 
vosts, bailiffs, and coroners. His ardor 
to come face to face with these ofiicials 
was null. He had just about as much 
curiosity to see the magistrates, as the 
hare to see the pointer. 

He began to regret having come to 
London. 

— Leave well alone, murmured he, 
aside. I thought the proverb was dis- 
credited. I was wrong. Foolish truths 
are the true truths. 

Against the coalition of so many 
powers — mountebanks taking in hand 
the cause of religion, chaplains vexing 
wrath in the name of medicine — the 
poor Green-Box, suspected of sorcery in 
Gwynplaine and of hydrophobia in 
Homo, had on its side but one thing 
only, though that is a great power in 
England, municipal inertness. It is 
from local leaving alone that English 
liberty took its rise. Liberty, in Eng- 
land, demeans itself like the sea around 
England. It is a tide. Little by little, 
customs overtop the laws. A fearful 
legislation engulfed, usage uppermost, 
a ferocious code still visible through the 
transparency of immense freedom — ^that 
is England. 

“The Man Who Laughs,” Chaos Con- 
quered^ and Homo might have against 
them the jugglers, the preachers, the 
bishops, the house of commons, the 
chamber of peers, her Majesty, and 
London, and all England — and remain 
tranquil — so long as Southwark was 
for them. The Green-Box was the 
favorite amusement of the suburb, and 
the local authority seemed to be indif- 


188 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


ferent. In England, indifference is pro- 
tection. So long as the sheriff of the 
county of Surrey, under whose jurisdic- 
tion was Southwark, did not budge, 
Ursus breathed, and Homo might 
be supine about his pair of wolf’s 
ears. / 

On condition that they did not end 
in the thumb-screw, these hatreds were 
aids to success. The Green-Box, for 
the moment, was none the worse. On 
the contrary. It transpired in the 
public that there were intrigues going 
on. “ The Man Who Laughs ” became 
all the more popular. The crowd has 
a keen nose for things denounced, and 
takes them in good part. To be sus- 
pected is a recommendation. The peo- 
ple adopt, by instinct, what the index 
threatens. The thing denounced is the 
beginning of forbidden fruit ; they 
make haste to bite of it. And then, ap- 
plause that teases some one, especially 
when that some one is an authority, 
has its charm. It is pleasant, in passing 
an evening agreeably, to manifest your 
sympathy with the oppressed, and op- 
position to the oppressor. You pro- 
tect, in the act of amusing yourself. 
Let us add that the theatrical booths of 
the Bowling-Green continued to hiss 
and to cabal against “ The Man Who 
Laughs.” Hothing better for success. 
Enemies make a noise ; that is effica- 
cious in sharpening and brightening up 
a triumph. A friend sooner wearies 
of praising, than an enemy of abusing. 
To abuse is not to harm; and this 
is what enemies do not know. They 
cannot refrain from insulting, and 
therein is their usefulness. They have 
that impossibility of remaining silent,, 
which keeps public attention awake. 
The crowd grew larger at Chaos Con- 
quered. 

Ursus kept to himself what Master 
Nicless told him of the intrigues and 
complaints in high places, and did not 
speak of them to Gwynplaine, so as not 


to trouble, by preoccupation, the requi- 
site composure of his performances. 

If ill came of them, it would be 
known soon enough. 

y. 

THE WAPENTAKE. 

Once, however, he thought he ought 
to deviate from this prudence, for pru- 
dence’ sake, and deemed it of advan- 
tage to try to make Gwynplaine un- 
easy. True it was, that Ursus was 
occupied in his mind with far more im- 
portant .matters than the intrigues of 
the fair or of the church. Gwynplaine, 
on picking up a farthing that had fallen 
to the ground when he was counting 
up the receipts, had set himself to look- 
ing at it closely, and had drawn a con? 
trast, in the presence of the innkeeper, 
between the farthing representing the 
wretchedness of the. people, and the 
image representing, under the form of 
Anne, the parasitical magnificence of 
the throne — a remark sounding badly ; 
and this remark, repeated by Master 
Nicless, had gone so far that it had 
come back to Ursus through Eibi and 
Vinos. Ursus was in a fever about it. 
Seditious words. High-treason. He 
rudely admonished Gwynplaine. 

— Keep a watch on your abominable 
jaw. There is one rule for the great 
— ^to do nothing ; and one rule for the 
small — to say nothing. The poor have 
but one friend, silence. They should 
use but one monosyllable: Yes. To 
confess and to concede — this is all the 
right they have. Yes, to the judge. 
Yes, to the king. ' The great, if it so 
please them, give us blows with a 
stick; I have had them; it is their 
prerogative, and they lose nothing of 
their greatness in cracking our bones ; 
the osprey * is a kind of eagle. Let us 


* [Note by the Tramlator.—NicXov Hugo here 
puns xipon the word ossifrage, which has the 


TEE WAPENTAKE. 


189 


worship the sceptre, which is the first 
among sticks. Respect is prudence, 
and humility is egotism. He who in- 
sults his king places himself in the same 
peril with the girl rashly cutting the 
lion’s mane. They teU me that you 
have been gabbling about a farthing, 
and that you have spoken contemptu- 
ously of this coin, by means of which 
we buy at market the half-quarter of a 
salt herring. Take care. Become se- 
rious. Learn that there are punish- 
ments. Acquaint yourself with the 
stern facts of legislation. You are in 
a country where he who cuts down a 
little tree three years old is quietly led 
to the gallows. Profane swearers are 
set with their feet in the stocks. The 
drunkard is secured in a hogshead, with 
the bottom knocked out so that he can 
walk, with a hole in the top for his 
head to come through, and two holes 
in the side for his hands to come 
through, so that ho cannot lie down. 
Whoever strikes any one in Westmin- 
ster Hall is imprisoned for life, and his 
goods are confiscated. Whoever strikes 
any one in the king’s palace has his 
right hand cut off. A fillip that makes 
the nose bleed, and there you are with 
but one hand. He who is convicted of 
heresy in the Bishop’s Court is burned 
alive. It was for no grave matter that 
Cuthbert Simpson was stretched upon 
the rack. Within three years, in 1702 
— it was not long ago, as you see — they 
put in the pillory a wretch named Dan- 
iel Defoe, who had had the audacity to 
print the names of the members of the 
Commons who had spoken the evening 
before in Parliament. He who is a 
felon to her Majesty is ripped open 
alive, and they tear out his heart, with 
which they buffet him on the cheeks. 
Teach yourself these notions of right 
and justice. Hever allow yourself a 


word ; and, at the least disturbance of 
the peace, run away. This is the 
bravery that I practise, and that I ad- 
vise. In temerity, imitate the birds; 
and in idle talking, imitate the fish. In 
short, there is this to admire in Eng- 
land, that her code is exceedingly mild. 

His admonition having been given, 
Hrsus was for some time uneasy ; Gwyn- 
plaine was not at all so. The fearless- 
ness of youth consists in a lack of ex- 
perience. Nevertheless, it seemed that 
Gwynplaine had been right in being 
unconcerned, for weeks passed away 
quietly, and it did not appear that his 
remark about the queen had led to any 
results. 

Ursus, it is known, was wanting in 
indifference, and, like the deer on the 
lookout, was watchful on all sides. 

One day, a little while after his re- 
monstrance with Gwynplaine, in gazing 
from the window which afforded a view 
out of doors, TJrsus turned pale. 

— Gwynplaine, said he. 

— What is it ? 

— Look I 

— Where ? 

— In the square. 

— What then ? 

— Do you see that man passing by ? 

— The man in black ? 

— Yes. 

— Who has a sort of mace in his 
clinched hand ? 

— Yes. 

— Well? 

— Well, Gwynplaine, that man is the 
wapentake. 

— What is the wapentake ? 

— He is the bailiff of the hundred ; 
the propositus Tiundredi. 

— What is the propositus Tiundredi ? 

— He is a terrible officer. 

— What is it that he has in his hand ? 

— It is the iron weapon. 

— What is the iron weapon ? 

—r It is a thing of iron. 

— What does he do with it ? 


double meaning of bone-breaking and the bird 
osprey. The point is lost in the translation.] 


190 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


— First of all, he takes the oath of 
office upon it. And this is why he is 
called the wapentake. 

— What more ? 

— What more is that he touches you 
with it. 

— With what ? 

— With the iron weapon. 

— The wapentake touches you with 
the iron weapon ? 

— Yes. 

— What does that mean ? 

— It means, foUow me. 

— And must you follow him ? 

— Yes. . 

— Where ? 

— How do I know ? 

— But he teUs you where he is going 
to take you ? 

— No. 

— But you have the right to ask 
him? 

— No. 

— How is this ? 

— He says nothing to you, and you 
say nothing to him. 

— But . . . 

— He touches you with the iron 
weapon ; that’s all. You must march. 

— But where ? 

— Behind him. 

— But where ? 

— Where he pleases, Gwynplaine. 

— And if one resists ? 

— One is hanged. 

IJrsus withdrew his head from the 
window, breathed freely, and said : 

— Thank God, he is gone ! It was 
not to our house that he was coming. 

Ursus was probably unreasonably 
alarmed at the indiscretion and possible 
complications of Gwynplaine’s careless 
remarks. 

Master Nicless, who had heard them, 
had no motive for compromising the 
poor devils of the Green-Box. He 
made indirectly a little fortune out of 
“ The Man Who Laughs.” Chaos Con- 
quered had two successes ; at the same 


time that it wrought a triumph of art 
in the Green-Box, it made drunkenness 
flourish at the inn. 

VI. 

THE MICE OEOSS-EXAMINED BY THE 
OATS. 

Uesus had yet another alarm suffi- 
ciently terrifying. This time it was he 
himself who was in question. He was 
summoned to Bishopsgate, before a 
commission composed of three disa- 
greeable visages. These three visages 
were three doctors, overseers duly qual- 
ified. One was a doctor of theology, 
delegated by the Dean of Westminster ; 
another was a doctor of medicine, del- 
egated by the College of Eighty; the 
third was a doctor of history and civil 
law, delegated by Gresham College. 
These three experts in omni re scibili 
had jurisdiction concerning words spo- 
ken in public in the whole territory of 
the one hundred and thirty parishes of 
London, the seventy-three of Middle- 
sex, and, by enlargement, of the five of 
Southwark. These theological juris- 
dictions yet exist in England, and were 
usefully severe on the 23d of Septem- 
ber, 1868. By sentence of the Court 
of Arches, confirmed by a decree of the 
Lords of . the Privy Council, the Eever- 
end Mackonochie was reprimanded, 
with costs, for lighting candles on a 
table. The liturgy does not trifle. 

Ursus, then, one fine day, received 
from these delegated doctors an order 
for his appearance, which, fortunately, 
was placed in his own hands, and which 
he could keep secret. He went, with- 
out saying a word, in obedience to the 
summons, trembling at the idea that he 
might be considered, to a certain ex- 
tent, as giving occasion for being sus- 
pected of having been, perhaps, in a 
measure, rash. He who so much recom- 
mended silence to others had received 


THE MICE CROSS-EXAMINED BY THE CATS. ’ 


here a sliarp lesson. Garrule^ sana te 
ijpsum. 

The three doctors, overseers and del- 
egates, were seated, at Bishopsgate, at 
the end of a hall on the ground-floor, 
on three arm-chairs in black leather, 
with the three busts of Minos, Aeacus, 
and Khadamanthus, above their heads 
against the wall, a table before them, 
and at their feet a stool for the accused. 

Ursus, introduced by a quiet and 
stern usher, entered, took a look at 
them, and upon the instant gave to each 
one of them, mentally, the name of the 
. infernal judge that was over his head. 

Minos, the first of the three, the 
overseer of Theology, made a sign to 
him to seat himself on the stool. 

Ursus bowed in a proper manner, 
that is to say, down to the ground, and, 
knowing that you may charm bears 
with honey and doctors with Latin, 
said, remaining half bent over in hom- 
age: 

Tres faciunt capitulum. 

And with his head lowered — for hu- 
mility disarms — he seated himself on 
the stool. 

Each of the three doctors had before 
him on the table a bundle of papers, of 
which he turned over the leaves. 

Minos began : 

— You speak in public ? 

— Yes, replied Ursus. 

— By what right ? 

— I am a philosopher. 

— That is no right. 

— I am also a juggler, said Ursus. 

— That’s another thing. 

Ursus breathed, but humbly. Minos 
resumed : 

— As a juggler, you may speak ; but 
as a philosopher, you should hold your 
tongue. 

— I will try, said Ursus. 

And then he thought to himself— I 
may speak, but I ought to hold my 
tongue. Puzzle. 

He was very much frightened. 


191 

The overseer on behalf of Heaven 
continued : 

— You say things that sound badly. 
You insult religion. You deny the 
most palpable truths. You propagate 
revolting errors. For instance, you 
have said that virginity precludes ma- 
ternity. 

Ursus meekly raised his eyes. 

— I did not say that. I said that 
maternity precluded virginity. 

Minos was thoughtful, and growled : 

— In fact, this is the contrary. 

It is the same thing. But Ursus had 
parried the first blow. 

Minos, thinking over the reply of 
Ursus, sank into the depths of his own 
stupidity, and this produced silence. 

The overseer of History, he who to 
Ursus was Ehadamanthus, covered the 
defeat of Minos with this challenge : 

— Accused, your audacities and your 
errors are of all kinds. You have de- 
nied that the battle of Pharsalia was 
lost, because Brutus and Cassius encoun- 
tered a negro. 

— I said, replied Ursus, in a low 
voice, that another cause of it was that 
Cffisar was the. better captain. 

The man of history passed abruptly 
to mythology. 

— You have excused the infamies of 
Acteon. 

— I think, suggested Ursus, that a 
man is not dishonored by having seen 
the beauty of a woman. 

Ehadamanthus came back to history. 

— Talking of accidents happening to 
the cavalry of Mithridates, you have 
contested the virtues of plants and 
herbs. You have denied that an herb 
like the securiduca would cause a horse’s 
shoes to fall off. 

— I beg pardon, replied Ursus, I said 
that this was only possible with the 
herb sferra-camlla. I did not deny 
the virtue of any herb. 

And he added in a lower tone : 

— Nor of any woman. 


192 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


By this little extra flourish to his 
answer, Ursus had satisfled himself that, 
agitated as he was, he had not been 
unhorsed. Ursus was made up of fright 
and presence of mind. 

— I insist, resumed Ehadamanthus, 
you have declared it was a folly in 
Scipio, when he would open the gates 
of Carthage, to take for a key the herb 
cethiopis^ because the herb cetMopis has 
not the property of breaking locks. 

— I simply said that he had much 
better have made use of the herb lunaria. 

— That is an opinion, murmured 
Ehadamanthus, hit in turn. 

And the man of history was silent. 

The man of theology, Minos, having 
recovered himself, questioned Ursus 
again. He had had time to consult his 
bundle of notes. 

— You have classed orpiment with 
arsenical products, and you have said 
tliat you might poison with orpiment. 
The Bible denies it. 

— The Bible denies it, sighed Ursus, 
but arsenic aflirms it. 

The personage in whom Ursus had 
seen Eacus, who was the overseer of 
Medicine, and who had not as yet 
spoken, interposed, and, with his eyes 
arrogantly half-opened, from his lofty 
height, came to the support of Ursus. 
He said : 

— The answer is not inapt. 

Ursus thanked him with a smile of 
the deepest abasement. 

Minos made a frightful grimace. 

— I continue, resumed Minos. An- 
swer. You have said that it was false 
that the basilisk was the king of ser- 
pents under the name of cockatrice. 

— Most reverend, said Ursus, I had 
so little desire to injure the basilisk, 
that I said it was certain that he had 
the head of a man. 

— Be it so, replied Minos sternly ; but 
you have added that Poerius had seen 
one that had the head of a falcon. 
Could you prove it ? 


— With difficulty, said Ursus. 

Here he lost a little ground. 

Minos, seizing again the advantage, 
pushed him hard. 

— You have said that a Jew, who be- 
came a Christian, did not smell well. 

— But I added that a Christian, who 
became a Jew, stank. 

Minos cast a threatening look on the 
bundle. 

— You affirm and propagate matters 
that have not the air of trnth. You 
have said that Elien had seen an ele- 
phant write maxims. 

— Not so, most reverend. I simply 
said that Oppien had heard a hippopot- 
amus discuss a philosophical problem. 

— Y'ou have declared that it is not 
true that a beech-wood plate would, of 
itself, cover itself with any viand that 
might be desired. 

— I have said that, „ in order that it 
should possess this virtue, it must have 
been given to you by the devil. 

— Given to me ! 

— No ; to me, reverend sir ! No ; to 
anybody, to all the world. 

And, aside, Ursus thought; I no 
longer know what I am saying. But 
his anxiety, though extreme, was not 
outwardly too discernible. Ursus strug- 
gled. 

— AJl this, replied Minos, implies a 
certain belief in the devil. 

Ursus stuck to it. 

— Most reverend, I am not impious 
to the devil. Belief in the devil is the 
converse of belief in God. The one 
proves the other. He who does not 
believe a little in the devil does not be- 
lieve much in God. He who believes 
in the sun must believe in the shadow. 
The devil is the night of God. What 
is night ? The proof of day. 

Ursus improvised here an incompre- 
hensible mixture of philosophy and re- 
ligion. Minos again became thoughtful, 
and took another plunge into silence. 

Ursus breathed again. 


THE MICE CEOSS-EXAMINED BY THE CATS. 


193 


A sharp attack followed. Eacns, the 
delegate of Medicine, who had just de- 
fended TJrsus disdainfully against the 
overseer of Theology, suddenly became 
the ally of his assailant. He brought 
his clinched fist down upon the bundle, 
which was thick and well packed; and 
Ursus received from him,' full in the 
face, this apostrophe : 

— It is proved that crystal is refined 
ice, and that the diamond is refined 
crystal ; it is asserted that ice becomes 
crystal in a thousand years, and that 
crystal becomes diamond in a thousand 
centuries. Y'on have denied it. 

— Ho, replied Ursus, dejectedly. I 
have only said that in a thousand years 
the ice had time to melt, and a thou- 
sand centuries it was not easy to com- 
pute. 

The cross-examination went on, the 
questions and answers sounding like a 
clash of swords. 

— You have denied that the plants 
can speak. 

— Hot at all. But for this they 
should be under a gallows. 

— Do you assert that the mandragora 
cries ? 

— Ho, but it sings. 

— You have denied that the fourth 
finger of the left hand had a sovereign 
virtue. 

— I only said that sneezing to the left 
was an unlucky sign. 

— You have spoken rashly and dis- 
paragingly of the phoenix. 

— Learned judge, I have simply said 
that, when he wrote that the brain of 
the phoenix was a delicate morsel, but 
caused the headache, Plutarch went too 
far, seeing that the phoenix never exist- 
ed. 

— Abominable language. The cinna- 
mon-bird, that makes its nest with 
sticks of cinnamon, tliQ rhintace that 
Parysatis used in her poisonings, the 
manucodiate^ which is the bird of para- 
dise, and the semenda^ which has a bill 
13 


with three tubes, have improperly 
passed for the phoenix ; but the phoenix 
has existed. 

— I do not contest it. 

— Y’on are a donkey. 

— I do not pretend to be any thing 
better. 

— Y'on have admitted that the elder 
cures the quinsy, but you have added 
that it was not because it had in its 
root a fairy excrescence. 

— I said it was because Judas had 
hanged himself upon an elder. 

— Plausible opinion, muttered the 
theologian, Minos, satisfied with giving 
his pin-thrust to the doctor, Eacus. 

Pride, ruffled, immediately becomes 
anger. Eacus was enraged. 

— Strolling fellow, you go astray as 
much with your mind as with your 
feet. You have suspicious and surpris- 
ing proclivities. You walk on the very 
verge of sorcery. You are in corre- 
spondence with unknown animals. Y ou 
speak to the rabble of matters that ex- 
ist for yourself alone, and which are 
of a nature not understood, such as the 
hcBinorrhoHs. 

— The JicBmorrhoiis is a viper that 
was seen by Tremellius. 

This retort produced a certain con- 
fusion in the irritated science of the 
doctor Eacus. 

Ursus added : 

— The Ji(Bmorrhoii8 is altogether as 
real as the strong-smelling hyena, and 
the civet described by Oastellus. 

Eacus recovered himself by a home- 
thrust. 

— Here is the text of your most dia- 
bolical language. Listen. 

His eye upon the notes, Eacus read : 

— “Two plants, the thalagssigU and 
the aglaphotis^ are luminous in the 
evening. Elowers by day, stars by 
night.” 

And, looking fixedly at Ursus : 

— What have you to say ? 

Ursus replied ; 


194 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


— Every plant is a lamp. Perfume 
is light. 

Eacus turned over some pages. 

— You have denied that the vesicles 
of the seal were the same thing as the 
' castor-hean. 

— I contented myself with saying 
that we must distrust Aetius on that 
point. 

Eacus became ungovernable. 

— You practise medicine. 

— I practise myself in medicine, tim- 
idly sighed TJrsus. 

— On the living ? 

— Rather more than on the dead, 
said Ursus. 

TJrsus retorted with firmness, but 
with self-abasement — admirable mix- 
ture wherein suavity predominated. He 
spoke, indeed, with so much sweetness 
that the Doctor Eacus felt the necessity 
of insulting him. 

— "What do you mean by cooing us 
in this way ? said he, savagely. 

Ursus was aghast, and contented 
himself with replying : 

— Cooing is for the young, and 
groaning is for the old. Alas! I groan. 

Eacus rejoined : 

— Be warned of this ; if a sick man 
is attended by you, and he dies, you 
will be punished with death. 

Ursus hazarded a question : 

— And if he is cured ? 

— In that case, replied the doctor, 
softening his tone, you will be punished 
with death. 

— There’s little difference, said Ur- 
sus. 

The doctor answered : 

— If there is a death, we punish the 
stupidity ; if there is a cure, we punish 
the presumption. The gallows in both 
cases. 

— I was ignorant of this little matter, 
said Ursus, in an undertone. I thank 
you for teaching it to me. One does 
not know all the beauties of legisla- 
tion. 


— Mind what you are about. 

— Religiously, said Ursus. 

— We know what you are doing. 

— For myself, thought Ursus, I don’t 
always know it. 

— We could send you to jail. 

— I have some inkling of that, my 
lords. 

— You cannot deny your misdeeds 
and your transgressions. 

— My philosophy begs pardon. 

— They accuse you of insolence. 

— They are enormously in error. 

— They say that you cure the sick. 

— I am the victim of calumnies. 

The tiiple pair of horrible eyebrows 
bent upon Ursus became knit ; the 
three learned faces came together and. 
whispered. Ursus had a vision of a 
fool’s cap indistinctly outlining itself 
above these three heads in authority. 
The confidential and privileged grum- 
bling of the trio lasted several minutes, 
during which time Ursus felt all the 
freezings and aU the burnings of anguish. 
At last, Minos, who was the presiding 
officer, turned toward him, and said to 
him, in a furious tone : 

— Be»off with you! 

Ursus had in some degree the sensa- 
tion of Jonah, as he came out of the 
whale’s belly. 

Minos continued : 

— You are discharged. 

Ursus said to himself : 

— Catch me at it again ! Good-by, 
Medicine ! 

And he added, in his inner con- 
science : 

— Hereafter, I shall carefully leave 
people to die like brutes. 

Bent double, he bowed to ever^ tiling, 
the doctors, the busts, the table, and 
the walls, and moved toward the door 
backward, disappearing like a shadow 
that vanishes away. 

He left the hall slowly — like an hon- 
est man, and the street rapidly — like a 
culprit. The officers of justice have so 


WHAT REASONS, ETC. 


195 


peculiar and mysterious an address, that 
even the acquitted avoid them. 

In full flight, he grumbled : 

— I had a narrow escape of it. I am 
the wild man of learning ; they are the 
domesticated men of learning. The 
doctors are a plague to the learned. 
False science is the excrement of the 
true ; and its function is the destruction 
of philosophers. The philosophers, in 
producing the sophists, produce their 
own ruin. Of the droppings of the 
thrush is born the mistletoe, of which 
they make the birdlime, with which 
they catch the thrush. 

W e have not set up Ursus as a nice 
man. He had the effrontery to use 
words that conveyed his meaning. He 
had no more taste than Voltaire. 

Ursus returned to the Green-Box — 
told Master Mcless that he had been 
belated by following a pretty woman — 
and breathed not a word of his adven- 
ture. 

Only, that evening, he said in low 
tone to Homo : 

— Know this. I have vanquished 
the three heads of Cerberus. 

VII. 

WHAT REASONS CAN A DOUBLOON HAVE 
FOR KEEPING BAD COMPANY AMONG 
TWOPENNY PIECES? 

A DIVERSION occurred unexpectedly. 

The Tadcaster Inn was more and 
more a furnace of fun and laughter. 
Hever was there a gayer tumult. The 
innkeeper and his boy were not equal 
to pouring out the ale, the stout, and 
the porter. At night, the lower haU, 
all its windows streaming with light, 
had not one empty table. They sang, 
they shouted. The grand old fireplace, 
with a back like an oven, and its iron 
grate, heaped up with coal, blazed high. 
It was like a mansion of warmth and 
resounding merriment. 


In the court-yard, that is to say, in 
the theatre, the crowd was greater stili. 

All the people that the suburb of 
Southwark could turn out came in such 
crowds to the representations of Chaos 
Conquered^ that as soon as the curtain 
was raised, that is to say, as soon as the 
panel of the Green-Box was lowered, it 
was impossible to find a seat. The 
windows overflowed with spectators; 
the balcony was invaded. One could 
no longer see a single paving-stone of 
the court; every part was filled with 
human faces. 

Only the compartment for the nobil- 
ity remained always empty. 

This made, in the centre of the bal- 
cony, a black void, which was called, 
in a slang metaphor, “the oven.” No- 
body there. Everywhere else, but there, 
an immense crowd. 

One evening it contained somebody. 

It was Saturday, the day when the 
English rush to amuse themselves, hav- 
ing to bore themselves on Sunday. The 
hall was full. 

Ve say hall. Shakespeare, also, for 
a long time, had for his theatre only the 
court-yard of an inn, and he called it 
hall. 

At the moment when the curtain was 
withdrawn upon the prologue of Chaos 
Conquered — ^Ursus, Homo, and Gwyn- 
plaine being on the stage — ^Ursus, as 
was his habit, threw a glance at the 
spectators, and received a shock. 

The compartment “for the nobility” 
was occupied. 

A woman was seated, alone, in the 
middle of the box, on an arm-chair of 
Utrecht velvet. 

She was alone, and she filled the 
box. 

Certain creatures have a dazzling 
splendor. This woman, like Uea, had a 
brightness of her own, but different. 
Dea was pale; this woman was rosy. 
Dea was the early dawn ; this woman 
was the morning. Dea was lovely; 


196 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


this woman was superb. Dea was inno- 
cence, candor, whiteness, alabaster ; this 
woman was the purple, and you felt 
that she did not fear blushing. Her 
radiance overflowed the box, and she 
sat in the centre, motionless, as though 
she were some fuU-blown idol. 

In the midst of this dirty crowd, she 
had the superior sparkle of the car- 
buncle ; she flooded the people with so 
much light that she drowned them in 
shadow, and all these obscure faces 
underwent an eclipse. Her splendor 
I had effaced every thing. 

All eyes were upon her. 

Tom- Jim- Jack mingled with the 
crowd. He disappeared with the rest, 
in the nimbus of this radiant person. 

The woman absorbed, at the outset, 
public attention, made a competition 
with the play, and injured a little the 
earlier effects of Chaos Conquered,. 

However much she resembled a 
dream, she was real to those who were 
near her. She was indeed a woman. 
Perhaps she was too much a woman. 
She was tail and robust, and magnifi- 
cently exhibited herself as nude as she 
well could be. She wore heavy ear- 
rings of pearls, set together with those 
curious jewels called “keys of England.” 
Her skirt was of muslin of Siam, em- 
broidered with gold threads, indicating 
the greatest luxury, since such muslin 
dresses cost at that time six hundred 
crowns. A large diamond agrafe fas- 
tened her chemisette, which was on a 
line with her bosom, according to the las- 
civious fashion of the age, and which was 
made of that Friesland cambric where- 
of Anne of Austria had sheets so flne 
that they were drawn through a flnger- 
ring. This woman wore — like a cuirass 
of rubies — ^uncut gems and precious 
stones sewed aU over her bodice. Be- 
sides, her eyebrows were darkened with 
Indian ink ; and her arms, her elbows, 
her shoulders, her chin, under her nos- 
trils, under her eyelids, the lobes of her 


ears, the palms of her hands, the tips 
of her fingers, were touclied with rouge, 
and had a certain warm and exciting 
effect ; and above all this was a deter- 
mined will to be lovely. She came 
very near being a savage. She was a 
panther, with the capacity of being a 
cat, and of fondling. One of her eyes 
was blue ; the other was black. 

Gwynplaine, like Ursus, looked atten- 
tively at this woman. 

The Green-Box was something of a 
phantasmagoria. Chaos Conquered was 
more a charm than a play, and they had 
been wont to produce upon the public 
the effect of a vision. On this occasion 
the effect of a vision was produced in 
turn upon them ; the house gave back 
the surprise to the stage, and it was 
their time to be startled. They expe- 
rienced the ricochet of fascination. 

The woman looked at them, and they 
looked at her. 

To them, in the distance where they 
were, and in that luminous mist which 
constitutes the adumbration of a theatre, 
details were not distinguishable, and it 
was like an illusion. It was a woman 
beyond a doubt ; but was it not also a 
phantom? This burst of light upon 
their darkness bewildered them. It 
was like the appearance of a strange 
planet. She had come from the realm 
of the blest. Her radiancy heightened 
the effect of her person. She had 
around her the scintillations of the 
night, like a Milky Way. Those jewels 
resembled the stars. That diamond 
agrafe was perhaps a Pleiad. The 
glorious modelling of her bosom was 
supernatural. Seeing this starry crea- 
ture, one experienced the thrilling sen- 
sation of being momentarily about to 
enter the celestial regions. It -was from 
the recesses of a paradise, that this face 
of imperturbable repose had leaned 
down upon the shabby Green-Box and 
its wretched patrons. Curiosity of the 
highest rank, which satisfied itself, and 


WHAT REASONS, ETC. 


gave food for the cnriosity of the rabble. 
The lofty suffered the low to look at it. 

Ursus, Gwynplaine, Vinos, Fibi, the 
crowd — all felt the power of this daz- 
zlement, save Dea, ignorant of it in her 
darkness. 

There was, in this presence, some- 
thing of the apparition; but none of 
the ideas which the word ordinarily 
suggests were realized in this figure; 
she had nothing transparent, nothing 
indefinite, nothing floating, nothing va- 
porous ; it was a fresh and ruddy appa- 
rition, in sound health. ^Nevertheless, 
under the optical conditions in which 
Ursus and Gwynplaine were placed, it 
was like a vision. Those gross phan- 
toms, that we call vampires, do exist. 
The pretty queen, who herself is a 
vision to the multitude, and who eats 
up thirty millions a year, at the expense 
of her poor subjects, has just such 
health as this. 

Behind the woman, in shadow, might 
be seen her attendant lad, el mozo^ a 
little babyish man, fair and pretty, with 
a serious expression. A very young 
and very surly groom was the fashion 
of the period. The boy was dressed 
from top to toe in flame-colored velvet, 
and wore a skull-cap trimmed with 
gold lace, with a tuft of tailor-bird 
feathers, a mark of aristocratic servi- 
tude, indicating the valet of a very 
great lady. 

The lackey is a part of the lord, and 
it was impossible not to remark, in the 
shadow of this woman, this train-bear- 
ing page. The mind often makes notes 
without our knowledge ; and, though 
Gwynplaine was not aware of it, the 
round cheeks, the grave look, the gold- 
laced cap, and the tuft of tailor-bird 
feathers of this lady’s boy, left some im- 
pression on him. Beyond this, the 
groom did nothing to cause himself to 
be observed. To attract attention is to 
forfeit respect ; and he remained stand- 
ing and passive at the end of the box, 


197 

as far withdrawn as the closed door 
would admit. 

Although the manikin trainbearer 
was there, the woman was none the 
less alone in the compartment, seeing 
that a valet does not count. 

Powerful as had been the sensation 
created by this person, who produced 
the eftect of a grand personage, the 
closing scene of Chaos Conquered was 
more powerful still. The effect was, as 
usual, irresistible. There had been in 
the hall, perhaps by reason of this radi- 
ant looker-on — since sometimes the 
spectator enhances the spectacle — an 
excess of electric excitement. The con- 
tagion of Gwynplaine’s laugh was more 
triumphant than ever. The whole au- 
dience went into fits in an indescribable 
epilepsy of exhilaration, wherein you 
might distinguish the leading, ringing 
laugh of Tom-Jim-Jack. 

Only the young stranger, who looked 
on the spectacle with the immobility of 
a statue and the eyes of a phantom, did 
not laugh. 

A spectre, but a solar light. 

The exhibition over, the panel put 
up, the privacy of the interior of the 
Green-Box reestablished, Ursus opened 
and emptied on the supper-table the 
bag of twopenny pieces, among which 
rolled out suddenly an ounce of Spanish 
gold. 

— From her ! cried Ursus. 

This ounce of gold in the midst of the 
verdigrised pennies was, in effect, this 
woman in the midst of the people. 

— She has paid a doubloon for her 
place ! repeated Ursus, enthusiastically. 

At this moment the innkeeper en- 
tered the Green-Box, passed his arm 
through the window-frame, opened in 
the wall against which the Green-Box 
leaned a sliding pane, of which we 
have spoken, which afforded a sight of 
the fair-ground, and which was at the 
same height as the window, and made 
a sign to Ursus to look out. A carriage, 


198 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


set off with plumed lackeys bearing 
torches, and drawn by a magnificent 
team, was moving off at a fast trot. 

Ursus respectfhlly took the doubloon 
between his thumb and forefinger, 
showed it to Mcless, and said : 

— She is a goddess. 

Then his eyes fell on the carriage just 
turning the corner of the ground, and 
on its top, where the torches of the 
valets lighted up a coronet of gold with 
eight fleurons, and he cried out : 

— She is more. She is a duchess. 

The carriage disappeared. The sound 
of the wheels died away. 

Ursus remained for some minutes in 
an ecstatic state, elevating the doubloon 
between his two fingers, converted into 
a monstrance, such as they use for the 
elevation of the host. 

Then he laid it on the table, and 
looking at it began to speak of “the 
lady.” The innkeeper made reply. 
It was a duchess. Yes. They knew 
her title. But her name? This they" 
did not know. Master Micless had 
seen close at hand her carriage all em- 
blazoned, and her lackeys aU gold-laced. 
The coachman wore a wig that would 
make you think him the lord-chancellor. 
The carriage was of that unfrequent 
pattern known in Spain as the coclie- 
tumbon^ a splendid variety, with a top 
like a tomb, which was a famous sup- 
port for a coronet. The boy-valet was 
a sample of humanity so small, that he 
could seat himself on the step of the 
carriage outside the door. They em- 
ploy these pretty little fellows to carry 
the ladies’ trains ; they also carry their 
messages. And did you remark the 
boy’s tuft of tailor-bird feathers ? Here’s 
grandeur. "Whoever wears these tailor- 
bird feathers, without the right, pays a 
heavy fine. Master Nicless had also 
seen the lady, quite close at hand. A 
sort of queen. So much do riches lend 
to beauty. The skin is whiter, the eye 
more flashing, the bearing more noble, 


the beauty more insolent. N" othing can 
equal the impertinent elegance of hands 
that do not work. Master Nicless re- 
counted this magnificence of the fair 
skin with the blue veins, that neck, 
those shoulders, those arms, that rouge 
everywhere, those pearl-drops, that 
head-dress of powdered gold, that pro- 
fusion of precious stones, those rubies, 
those diamonds. 

— Less brilliant than the eyes, mut- 
tered Ursus. 

Gwynplaine was silent. 

Hea listened. 

— And do you know, said the inn- 
keeper, what is most astonishing ? 

— What ? demanded Ursus. 

— It is that I saw her get into her 
carriage. 

— What of that ? 

— She did not get in alone. 

— Bah! 

— Somebody got in with her. 

— Who ? 

— Guess. 

— The king, said Ursus. 

— In the first place, said Master Nic- 
less, there is no king just now. We 
are not under a king. Guess who got 
into the carriage with that duchess. 

— Jupiter, said Ursus. 

The innkeeper replied : 

— Tom-Jim-Jack. 

Gwynplaine, who had not uttered a 
word, broke silence. 

— Tom-Jim-Jack ! cried he. 

There was an interval of suspense, 
in which you might have heard Dea 
say: 

— Can’t we prevent that woman’s 
coming here ? 

YIII. 

SYMPTOMS OF POISONING. 

The “apparition” did not come back. 

She did not come back to the show, 
but she came back to Gwynplaine’s 
mind. 


SYMPTOMS OF POISONING. 


199 


To a certain extent, Gwynplaine was 
troubled. 

It seemed to him that, for the first 
time in his life, he had seen a woman. 

All at once, it occurred to him to 
dream strangely — ^in itself almost a fall. 
We should be on our guard against 
the re very that lays its hold upon us. 
The mystery and the subtlety of an odor 
are in revery. It is to thought what the 
perfume is to the tuberose. It is 
sometimes the expansion of a poisonous 
idea, and it has the penetrating power 
of smoke. You may poison yourself 
with reveries, as with fiowers. Suicide 
intoxicating, exquisite, and sinister ! 

The suicide of the soul is to think 
evil. Therein is the poisoning. Eevery 
entices, inveigles, lures, enwraps, and 
then makes of you its accomplice. It 
makes you its partner in the tricks that 
it plays upon conscience. It charms you. 
Then it corrupts you. That may be 
said of revery which is said of gambling. 
Y^ou begin by being a dupe ; you finish 
by being a cheat. 

Gwynplaine dreamed. 

He had never seen Woman. 

He had seen her shadow in all the 
female populace; in Dea he had seen 
her soul. 

How he had seen her reality. 

A skin, warm and living, under which 
might be felt the ebb and flow of an 
impassioned blood — forms that had the 
precision of marble and the undulation 
of the wave — a countenance supercili- 
ous and impassible, mingling refusal 
with allurement, and epitomized in 
radiance — hair colored as though re- 
flected from a conflagration — an indeli- 
cacy of attire, having in itself, and in- 
citing, the tremor of voluptuousness — a 
suspicion of nudity, betraying a disdain- 
ful wish to be possessed at arm’s length 
by the crowd — an impregnable coquetry 
— an impenetrable charm — temptation 
made piquant by foreseen perdition — 
a promise to the senses, and a menace 


to the spirit — a double anxiety, one 
half of which is desire, and the other 
half is fear ; this is what he had seen. 
He had seen a woman. 

He had seen more and less than a 
woman — a female. 

And at the same time an Olympian. 

A female of a god. 

That mystery, sex, had been mani- 
fested to him. 

And where ? In the inaccessible. 

At an infinite distance. 

Mocking destiny ! The soul, that 
thing celestial, he held it ; he had it in 
his hand — it was Hea. The sex, that 
thing terrestrial, he perceived in the 
topmost height of heaven — it was that 
woman. 

A duchess. 

More than a duchess, IJrsus had said. 

How lofty a battlement ! 

A very dream would recoil before 
any attempt to scale it. 

Was he going to be mad enough to 
dream of this unknown woman? He 
debated it within himself. 

He recalled all that Ursus had said to 
him touching these exalted and quasi- 
royal existences. The philosopher’s 
wanderings, that had seemed to him 
superfluous, became for him landmarks 
of meditation. We have often in our 
memories only a very thin coating of 
forgetfulness, which, on occasion, re- 
veals suddenly that which is underneath. 
He portrayed to himself that august 
world, the lordly estate, whereof was 
this woman, inexorably superimposed 
upon that lowest world, the people, 
whereof he was himself. And was he, 
even, of the people? Was he not, he, 
the mountebank, lower than that which 
is the lowest? For the first time since 
he had reached the age of reflection, 
his heart was oppressed by the mean- 
ness, that in our day we should call 
abasement. The pictures and the de- 
tails of IJrsus, his lyrical inventories, his 
dithyrambics on country seats, parks. 


200 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


fountaiiis, and colonnades, his displays 
of wealth and power, came to life again 
in Gwynplaine’s thought, standing out 
as something real in a cloudy setting. 
He was possessed by this climax. That 
a man could be a lord seemed to him 
chimerical. So it was, nevertheless. 
Incredible fact. There were lords ; but 
were they, like ourselves, of flesh and 
bone? That was doubtful. He felt 
that he himself was in the depth of the 
shadow, with a waU around him ; and 
he perceived in the supreme distance 
above his head, as though through the 
opening of a well wherein he might be, 
that dazzling medley of azure and of 
forms and of rays, that constitutes 
Olympus. the midst of this glory, 
the duchess was resplendent. 

The need of this woman, that he felt, 
was an indescribable compound of the 
strange and the impossible. 

And, despite himself, this poignant 
contrariety returned unceasingly to his 
mind : the seeing the soul beside him, 
within his reach, in a limited and tan- 
gible reality — the flesh, in the unseiz- 
able, in the very depths of the ideal. 

No one of these his thoughts was 
clearly defined. There was as it were 
a mist within him. It changed its form 
every moment, as it floated ; but its ob- 
scurity was profound. 

Beyond this, the idea of any thing 
herein, in any degree approachable, did 
not an instant ruffle his mind. He 
sketched not, even in his dreams, any 
movement upward toward the duchess. 
Happily for him. 

The trembling of such ladder-steps, 
when once the foot is set upon them, 
may settle forever in the brain. You 
think you are mounting to Olympus, 
and you reach Bedlam. A distinct long- 
ing, had it taken form in him, would 
have terrified him. He experienced 
nothing of the kind. 

' Besides, would he ever see this tvo- 
man again? Probably not. To be 


smitten by a light that streams on the 
horizon — madness goes not beyond that 
point. Making eyes at n star — strictly 
speaking, you can understand that; you 
see it again; it reappears; it is fixed. 
But how can any one be enamoured of a 
flash of lightning? 

Ho had as it were a pass-rope of 
dreams. The idol in the centre of the 
box, majestic and seductive, was drawn 
luminously with the stomp on the sur- 
face of his conceits ; then it was efiaced. 
He thought of it, thought no more of 
it, occupied himself with something 
else, and returned to it again. He 
underwent a delusion — ^nothing more. 

This hindered him from sleeping for 
several nights. Sleeplessness is as fuU 
of dreams as slumber. 

It is almost impossible to convey in 
their exact limits the abstruse evolu- 
tions that take place in the brain. The 
inconvenience of words is, that they 
have a more definite shape than ideas. 
All ideas merge into each other at their 
edges ; words do not. A certain vague 
nook of the soul always escapes them. 
Expression has its boundaries ; thought 
has none. 

Such is the sombre immensity within 
us, that what passed in Gwynplaine 
scarcely came in contact with Dea, in 
his mind. Dea was in the centre of his 
soul, sainted. Nothing could come 
near her. 

And, nevertheless — the human mind 
being made up of these contradictions 
— there was a conflict within him. "Was 
he aware of it ? Barely. 

In the spiritual tribunal within him, 
at the spot where fracture is possible — 
we all have that spot — ^he felt a colli- 
sion of feeble desires. For IJrsus it 
would have been simple; for Gwyn- 
plaine it was indistinct. 

Two instincts, the one id^al, the 
other sexual, combated within him. 
Such struggles are there between the 
angel of whiteness, and the angel of 


ABYSSUS ABYSSUM VOCAT. 


201 


blackness, on tbe bridge of the bottom- 
less pit. 

In tbe end, tbe black angel was thrown 
down. 

One day, all at once, Gwynplaine 
tbongbt no more of tbe unknown wo- 
man. 

Tbe combat between tbe two princi- 
ples, tbe duel between bis celestial and 
bis terrestrial impulses, bad taken place 
in bis own innermost recesses, and at 
sucb depth that be bad but a very con- 
fused perception of it. 

What is certain is, that be bad not 
ceased for a minute to adore Dea. 

There bad been in him a disorder, 
and far advanced. His blood bad bad 
a fever ; but it was ended. Dea alone 
remained. 

Any one would have astonished 
Gwjmplaine greatly, who bad told him 
that Dea could have been for a moment 
in danger. 

In a week or two, tbe phantom, that 
bad seemed to menace these two souls, 
bad faded away. 

There was no longer any thing in 
Gwynplaine, but tbe beai*t — a hearth, 
and love — a flame. 

Furthermore, as we have said, tbe 
duchess bad not returned. 

Ursus found this quite natural. Tbe 
“ lady of tbe doubloon ” is a phenome- 
non. It enters, pays, and vanishes. It 
would bo too much of a flne thing, that 
it should come back. 

As for Dea, she made not even an al- 
lusion to this .woman who bad gone by. 
She bstened probably, and was suffi- 
ciently informed by sighs from Ursus, 
and, here and there, by some significa- 
tive exclamation, sucb as — “ It doesn’t 
rain gold every day ! ” She spoke no 
more of “tbe woman.” Therein was 
a profound instinct. Tbe soul takes 
these obscure precautions, into tbe 
secret of which it has not always itself 
entered. To bold one’s tongue about 
any one seems equivalent to sending 


that person away. In making inquiries, 
one fears to summon back. "We keep 
silence thereupon, as we would shut a 
door. 

The incident was forgotten. 

Was there even any thing in it? Had 
it really occurred? Could it be said 
that a shadow bad floated between 
Gwynplaine and Dea? Dea did not 
know it, and Gwynplaine knew it no 
more. -Ho. There bad been nothing. 
Tbe duchess herself was outlined in tbe 
dim distance, like an illusion. It was 
but a minute’s dreaming traversed by 
Gwynplaine, and from which he had 
emerged. A revery dissipated, like a 
fog dissipated, leaves no trace ; and, 
the cloud passed away, love is no more 
diminished in the heart than the sun 
in the sky. 

IX. 

ABTSSITS ABTSSUM VOCAT. 

Another figure had disappeared — 
and that was Tom -Jim- Jack. He 
ceased abruptly to come to the Tad- 
caster Inn. 

Persons, so situated as to see both 
sides of the elegant life of the great 
London lords, might have noted per- 
haps that, at the same period, the 
WeeTcly Gazette^ between two extracts 
from parish registers, announced “ the 
departure of Lord David Dirry-Moir, 
by order of her Majesty, to resume the 
command of his frigate, in the White 
Squadron cruising on the coast of Hol- 
land.” 

Ursus perceived that Tom-Jim-Jack 
did not come any more ; the fact pre- 
occupied him much. Tom-Jim-Jack 
had not reappeared, since the day when 
he went off in the same carriage with 
the “lady of the doubloon.” An enigma 
truly was this Tom-Jim-Jack, who car- 
ried off duchesses with extended arms. 
What an interesting investigation to be 


202 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


made ! Wliat questions to be propound- 
ed! How much to be said! That is 
why TJrsus did not say a word. 

IJrsus, wbo bad seen life, knew wbat 
smarting a rash curiosity may occasion. 
Curiosity should always be proportioned 
to the curious individual. In listening, 
you risk the ear ; in watching, you risk 
the eye. It is prudent to hear nothing 
and to see nothing. Tom- Jim- Jack had 
mounted into that princely carriage, 
and the public-house keeper had wit- 
nessed his ascension. That sailor seat- 
ing himself by the side of that lady had 
an air of prodigy about it that made 
IJrsus circumspect. The caprices of 
upper life should be held sacred by the 
lower class. All those reptiles, who are 
called the poor, have nothing better to 
do than to cower down in their holes 
when they perceive any thing extraordi- 
nary. To keep snug is a necessity. 
Shut your eyes, if you have not the 
happiness to be blind ; stop your ears, 
if you have not the luck to be deaf; 
paralyze your tongue, if you lack the 
perfection of being dumb. The great 
are what they choose to be ; the small 
are what they can be ; let the unknown 
go by. Don’t let us importune mythol- 
ogy; don’t let us worry apparitions; 
let us have a profound respect for 
images ! Don’t let us direct our tittle- 
tattle toward the shrinkings or the en- 
largements that take place in the re- 
gions above us, for motives of which we 
are ignorant. These, for us puny crea- 
tures, are for the most part optical illu- 
sions. Metamorphoses are the affair of 
the gods ; transformations and disinte- 
grations, of the grand contingent per- 
sonages who float above us, are clouds 
impossible to comprehend and perilous 
to study. Too much scrutiny vexes the 
Olympians in their evolutions of amuse- 
ment or fantasy; and a thunderstroke 
may disagreeably teach you that the 
bull, whom you have examined too cu- 
riously, is Jupiter. Do not let us draw 


half-open the neutral-tinted curtain- 
folds of the powerful, who are to be 
dreaded. Indifference is intelligence. 
Do not budge; that is wholesome. 
Sham dead, and they won’t kiU you. 
Such is the insect’s wisdom. IJrsus 
practised it. 

The innkeeper, puzzled on his side, 
interrogated Ursus one day. 

— Do you know that we don’t see 
Tom-Jim-Jack any more? 

— Ah, said IJrsus, I had not noticed 
it. 

Master Nicless made some remark in 
a low tone, without doubt upon the 
mixing-up of the ducal carriage with 
Tom- Jim- Jack— an observation proba- 
bly irreverent and dangerous, to which 
Ursus took pains not to listen. 

Ursus, nevertheless, was too much an 
artist not to regret Tom-Jim-Jack. He 
experienced a certain degree of disap- 
pointment. But he confided his im- 
pressions to Homo only, the sole confi- 
dant of whose discretion he felt sure. 
He whispered into the wolf’s ear : 

— Since Tom-Jim-Jack has ceased 
coming, I feel a void as a man, and a 
chiU as a poet. 

This outpouring into the heart of a 
friend comforted Ursus. 

He remained walled up with Gwyn- 
plaine, who, on his side, made no allu- 
sion to Tom-Jim-Jack. 

In fact, a little more or less of Tom- 
Jim-Jack made no difference to Gwyn- 
plaine, absorbed in Dea. 

Porgetfolness had taken hold of 
Gwynplaine, more and more. Dea her- 
self did not even suspect that a vague 
commotion had taken place. At the 
same time there was no mere talk of 
cabals and complaints against “ The Man 
Who Laughs.” Hatred seemed to have 
let go its hold. All had subsided within 
the Green-Box ^d around the Green- 
Box. Ho more humbug, nor strolling 
players, nor priests. Ho outside grum- 
bling. They had the success, without 


ABYSSUS ABYSSUM VOCAT. 


2<33 


the menace. Destiny gives sometimes 
this sudden serenity. The shining bliss 
of Gwynplaine and of Dea was, for the 
moment, absolutely without a shadow. 
It had mounted little by little to that 
point, where nothing can be added to it. 
There is a word that expresses such sit- 
uations — apogee. Happiness, like the 
sea, reaches its high-water. The dis- 
quieting fact for the perfectly happy is, 
that the sea goes down again. 

There are two modes of being inac- 
cessible — the being very high, and the 
being very low. At least as much per- 
haps as the former, the latter is desira- 
ble. More surely than the eagle escapes 
the arrow, the animalcule escapes 
crushing. This security of littleness, 
we have already remarked, if any one 
had it upon earth, was enjoyed by those 
two beings, Gwynplaine and Dea ; but 
never had it been so complete. They 
lived more and more, one through the 
other, one in the other, ecstatically. 
The heart saturates itself with love, as 
with a divine salt that preserves it; 
thence the incorruptible binding to- 
gether of those who have loved each 
other from the dawn of life, and the 
freshness of olden loves prolonged. 

There is such a thing as embalming 
love. It is from Daphnis and Ohloe 
that Philemon and Baucis are made. 
That sort of old age, the similitude of the 
evening to the dawn, was evidently re- 
served for Gwynplaine and for Dea. In 
the meanwhile, they were young. 

TJrsus regarded this love, as a doctor 
makes his clinical inspection. Besides, 
he had what was called in those days 
the Hippocratic look. He fixed upon 
Dea, fragile and pale, his sagacious eye- 
ball, and grumbled out : It is very for- 
tunate that she is happy! At other 
times, he said: She is happy, for the 
benefit of her health. 

He shook his head, and at times read 
attentively Avicenna, translated by Vo- 
piscus Portunatus, Louvain, 1650— an 


old worm-eaten book that he had — 
where he treated of cardiac disorders. 

‘ Dea, easily fatigued, was subject to 
sweats and drowsiness, and took, it may 
be remembered, her siesta in the day. 
On one occasion when she was thus 
asleep, lying down upon the bear’s-skin, 
Gwynplaine not being there, TJrsus 
leaned over her softly, and applied his 
ear to Dea’s chest on the side of the 
heart. He seemed to listen for some 
instants; and then murmured, as he 
rose up : She must not have a shock. 
The crack would be speedily enlarged ! 

The crowd continued to overfiow, at 
the representations of Chaos Conquered. 
The success of “ The Man Who Laughs” 
appeared to be inexhaustible. All 
fiocked thither ; and it was not now 
Southwark only — ^London came in for 
a small share. The public even began 
to be a mixed one. It was no longer 
simple sailors and drivers. In the opin- 
ion of Master Hicless, a connoisseur in 
rabble, there were now, in this popu- 
lace, gentlemen and lords disguised as 
common people. Disguising is one of 
the delights of pride ; and it was then 
very much in vogue. This mingling of 
the aristocracy with the mob was a good 
sign, and showed an extension of suc- 
cess taking hold on London. Gwyn- 
plaine’s fame had decidedly made its 
entry among the great public. And 
the fact was real. The only thing 
talked of in London was “ The Man 
Who Laughs.” The talk had even 
reached up to the queen. 

In the Green-Box, there was not a 
misgiving. They were content to be 
happy. Dea’s intoxication was to 
touch, every evening, Gwynplaine’s 
wavy and yellow hair. In love, there 
is nothing so intoxicating as a habit. 
All of life is concentrated therein. The 
reappearance of the star is a habit of 
the universe. Creation is nothing else 
than a loving woman ; and the sun is a 
lover. 


204 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Light is a dazzling Caryatid, that 
supports the world. Day by day, dur- 
ing one sublime minute, the earth, hov- 
ered by night, leans upon the rising 
sun. Dea, blind, felt the same return 
of warmth and hope within her, at the 
moment when she placed her hand upon 
G'^ynplaine’s head, 

/To be two darksome beings adoring 
each other ; to love each other in the 
fulness of silence — one would be recon- 
ciled to an eternity thus passed^: 

One evening, Gwynplaine — over- 
charged with that felicity which, like 
intoxication from perfumes, causes a 
divine uneasiness — was roving on the 
fair-ground at some hundred paces from 
the Green-Box, as was not unusual with 
him when the performance was ended. 
One has occasionally these hours of ex- 
pansion, when the too-full heart over- 
flows. The night was dark, but clear. 
The stars shone brightly. All the 
bowling-green was deserted ; there was 
only sleep and forgetfulness in the 
booths scattered around the Tarrinzeau- 
Field. 

One light alone was not put out ; it 
was the lantern of the Tadcaster Inn, 
half-open and awaiting Gwynplaine’s 
return. 

Midnight had just tolled from the 
five parish churches of Southwark, 
with the intervals and variations of 
tone that distinguish one belfry fi’om 
another. 

Gwynplaine was dreaming of Dea. 
Of what should he have dreamed? 
But, this evening, unusually perturbed, 
full of a charm not devoid of pain, he 
was dreaming of Dea as man dreams of 
woman. He reproached himself for it. 
It was a falling off. The secret spousal 
impulse was beginning in him. Anx- 
iously did he cross-examine himself; 
he blushed, as one might say, inter- 
nally. 

Given too much paradise — ^love ceases 
to have a fancy for it. Love must 


have the life stirred up, the kiss elec- 
tric and irreparable.;' The sidereal dis- 
composes ; the ethereal oppresses. An 
excess of heaven is, in love, what an 
excess of combustibles is, in fire ; the 
flame suffers from it. He was ashamed 
of this visionary encroachment. It was 
almost an effort of profanation. He 
struggled against this besetting. He 
turned away from it ; then he came 
back to it. It seemed to him likfe 
committing an offence against de- 
cency. Dea was, for him, in a cloud. 
Trembling, he drew away the cloud. 

He took steps at random, with the 
rocking, absent motion, that one has in 
solitude. To have no one about — this 
tends to rambling of mind. 'Whither 
went his thought ? He would not have 
dared to tell himself. Tip to heaven ? 
Ho. 

Solitude in the bowling-green was 
so peaceful, that at moments he spoke 
aloud. 

To feel that you have no listeners 
makes you talk. 

He walked slowly, with his head 
bent down, his hands behind his back, 
the left in the right, the fingers 
open. 

Suddenly, he felt, as it were, the 
gliding of something into the inert 
opening between his fingers. 

He turned sharply round. 

He had a paper in his hand, and a 
man before him. 

It was the man who, coming up to 
him from behind with the stealth of a 
cat, had put the paper between his fin- 
gers. 

The paper was a letter. 

The man, sufficiently distinct by the 
dim starlight, was small, chubby-faced, 
young, grave, and wearing a flame-col- 
ored livery, visible from head to foot 
through the vertical opening of a long 
gray overcoat, which was then called a 
capenoche^ a Spanish word contracted, 
that means a hooded night-cloak. On 


THE TEJHPTATION OF ST. GWYNPLAINE. 


205 


his head he wore a crimson cap, like a 
cardinal’s coif, whereon the service he 
was in should be indicated by a certain 
trimming. On this coif might be seen 
a plume of bird-feathers. 

He was motionless before Gwyn- 
plaine. You might have called him the 
phantom of a dream. 

Gwynplaine recognized the valet-boy 
of the duchess. 

Before Gwynplaine could utter any 
exclamation of surprise, he heard the 
shrill voice, at once childish and fem- 
inine, of the boy, that said to him : 

— At this hour to-morrow be at the 
entrance of London Bridge. I shall be 
there. I will guide you. 

— Where ? asked Gwynplaine. 

— Where you are expected. 

Gwynplaine dropped his eyes upon 
the letter that he held mechanically in 
his hand. 

When he raised them up again, the 
boy was no longer there. 

He could make out, in the obscurity 
of the fair-ground, a vague dark form 
that rapidly diminished. This -n^as the 
little lackey going his way. He turned 
the corner of the street, and there was 
no one to be seen. 

Gwynplaine looked at the valet dis- 
appearing ; then he looked at the let- 
ter. There are moments in life when 
that which happens to you does not 
happen ; astonishment keeps you for a 
time at a certain distance from the fact. 
Gwynplaine brought the letter up to 
his eyes, as a person who wished to 
read ; then he discovered that he could 
not read it, for two reasons — in the first 
place, because he had not unsealed it ; 
in the second place, because it was dark. 
Several minutes passed before he re- 
called to mind that there was a lantern 
in the inn. He took a few steps, but 
aside, and as though he did not know 
where to go. A somnambulist, to whom 
a ghost has delivered a letter, might 
walk in this manner. 


At last he made up his mind, ran 
rather than advanced toward the inn, 
placed himself in the streak of light 
from the half-open door, and by that 
light examined once more the closed 
letter. Ho imprint could be seen upon 
the seal or the envelope. There was 
only, “To Gwynplaine.” He broke 
the seal, tore the envelope, unfolded 
the letter, brought it fully under the 
light, and read what follows : 

— “You are horrible, and I am 
beautiful. You are a stage-player, and 
I am a duchess. I am the first, and 
you are the last. I love you. Come ! ” 


BOOK IV. 

TEE PENAL VAULT, 

I. 

THE TEMPTATION OF ST. GWYNPLAINE. 

One jet of flame scarcely makes a 
point in the darkness ; another would 
set a volcano on fire. 

There are sparks that are enor- 
mous. 

Gwynplaine read the letter, and then 
re-read it. There was, without doubt, 
the expression — “ I love you.” 

Apprehensions succeeded each other 
in his mind. 

The first was the believing himself 
crazed. 

He was crazed. That was certain. 
What he had just seen had no existence. 
The twilight phantoms were playing 
with him, poor wretch. The little scar- 
let man was the flash of a vision. 
Sometimes, at night, a nonentity, con- 
densed into a flame, will come and laugh 
at you. After this mocking, the illu- 
sory being had disappeared, leaving be- 
hind him Gwynplaine crazed. 

The second apprehension was the 
proving that he had all his senses about 
him. 


206 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


A vision? Not at all. Weill And 
this letter ? Had he not a letter in his 
own hands ? Was there not absolutely 
an envelope, a seal, paper, writing? 
Did he not know from whom all this 
came? Nothing obscure in this adven- 
ture. Somebody has taken a pen and 
ink, and has written. Somebody has 
lighted a taper, and has made a seal 
with wax. Was not his name super- 
scribed upon the letter — “To Gwyn- 
plaine ? ” The paper smells sweet. All 
is clear. The little man — Gwynplaine 
recognizes him. This dwarf is a groom. 
This glare is a livery. This groom has 
appointed a meeting with Gwynplaine, 
for the next day, at the same hour, at 
the entrance of London Bridge. Is 
London Bridge an illusion? No, no; 
all that holds good. There is no delir- 
ium therein. All is reality. Gwynplaine 
is perfectly lucid. Gwynplaine is not 
dreaming. And he read the letter again. 

Well, then; yes! But what next? 

The what next is formidable. . 

There is a woman who loves him. 

A woman loves him 1 In that case, 
let no one evermore henceforward pro- 
nounce that word — “incredible.” A 
woman loves him ! A woman who has 
seen his countenance I A woman who 
is not blind I And who is this woman ? 
An ugly one ? No ; a beauty ! A gypsy ? 
No; a duchess! 

What was there herein, and what did 
it mean? What peril in such a tri- 
umph ! But how avoid throwing one’s 
self into it head foremost ? 

What! this woman, the siren, the 
apparition, the lady, the spectator from 
the visionary box, the radiant dark one. 
For she it was, she truly. 

The crackling of the conflagration, 
thus begun, broke out all over him. It 
was the marvellous unknown one ! the 
same who had caused him so much pain. 
And his first tumultuous thoughts con- 
cerning that woman came again upon 
him, as though heated in all this sombre 


fire. Forgetfulness is neither more nor 
less than a palimpsest. A certain inci- 
dent occurs ; and all the effaced portions 
revive, in the spaces between the lines 
of wondering memory. Gwynplaine 
believed that he had withdrawn this 
figure from his mind ; and he found it 
there again ; and it was therein im- 
pressed; and it had dug a hollow in 
that unconscious brain, guilty of a 
dream. Unknown to himself, the pro- 
found graving of his revery had bitten 
in, and far down. Now a positive 
evil had been done. And all this 
revery, henceforward perhaps irrep- 
arable — ^he laid hold on it again with 
vehemence. 

What I love for him ! What I the 
princess descended from her throne, 
the idol from its altar, the statue from 
its pedestal, the phantom from its 
cloud ! What ! from the depths of the 
impossible, the chimera had arrived I 
What! this divinity painted on -the 
ceiling ; what, this irradiation ; what, 
this Nereid aU moistened with pre- 
cious stones; what, this beauty un- 
approachable and supreme had leaned 
down toward Gwynplaine from the 
height of her escarpment of rays ! 
What! she had stayed, above Gwyn- 
plaine, her Aurora’s car, drawn jointly 
by turtle-doves and by dragons, and she 
had said to Gwynplaine : “ Come ! ” 
What ! he, ^ Gwynplaine ! his was this 
terrific glory, to be the object of such 
a lowering down of the empyrean! 
And this goddess, who came to him, 
knew what she was doing. She was 
not unaware of the horror incarnate in 
Gwynplaine. She had seen the mask 
that constituted Gwynplaine’s face. 
And this mask had not caused her to 
shrink back ! Gwynplaine was beloved 
in spite of it ! 

Fact, that went beyond aU imaginings 
— he was loved on this account ! Far 
from making the goddess recoil, the 
mask had attracted her ! 


TPIE TEMPTATION OF ST. GWYNPLAINE. 


207 


What ! there, -where this woman 
was, in the royal midst of irresponsible 
splendor and of power in fullest sway, 
there were princes, and she could take 
a prince ; there were lords, and she 
could take a lord; there were men, 
handsome, charming, proud, and she 
could take Adonis I And who was it 
that she was taking ? Gnafron. She 
could choose, amid meteors and thun- 
derbolts, the immense six-winged ser- 
aph ; and she chose the larva crawling 
in the mire. On one side, highnesses 
and mightinesses, all the grandeur, all 
the opulence, all the glory; on the other 
side a mountebank. The mountebank 
carried the day! What scales, then, 
were there in this woman’s heart ? By 
what weights weighed she out her love ? 
This woman took from her brow the 
ducal cap, and threw it upon the clown’s 
trestle. This woman took from her 
head the Olympian aureole, and placed 
it on the bristly skull of a gnome. One 
knows not what turning of the world 
upside down — the swarming of insects 
above, constellations below — was swal- 
lowing up Gwynplaine, distracted un- 
der a downfall of light, and making for 
him a halo in his cloaca. “You are 
horrible. I love you ; ” these words 
touched Gwynplaine on the ghastly 
spot of pride. Pride is the heel wherein 
every hero is vulnerable. Gwynplaine 
was flattered in his vanity as monster. 
It was as a deformed being that he 
was loved. He also, as much as, per- 
haps more than, the Jupiters and the 
Apollos, was a specialty. He felt 
himself to be superhuman, and so 
monstrous as to be a god. Horrify- 
ing dazzlement ! 

And now, what was this woman ? 
What knew he of her ? Every thing, 
and nothing. She was a duchess ; he 
knew that. He knew that she was 
beautiful, that she was rich, that she 
had liveries, lackeys, pages, rimners 
with torches around her coroneted 


carriage. He knew that she was in 
love with him, or at least that she 
told him so. The rest he knew not. 
He knew her rank, and he knew not 
her name. He knew her thought, and 
he knew not her life. Was she wife, 
widow, maid? Was she free? Was 
she bound to any duties whatever? Of 
what family was she a member? Were 
there around her pitfalls, ambushes, 
reefs ? Gwynplaine suspected nothing 
as to what gallantry is in high and idle 
places; as to there being caverns on 
these summits wherein ferocious charm- 
ers dream, while around them lie pell- 
mell the bones of loves already de- 
voured ; as to essayings, tragically cyni- 
cal, whereto the ennui of a woman may 
tend, who deems herself superior to 
man. He had not even in his mind the 
wherewithal to build up a conjecture ; 
in the social subsoil wherein he lived, 
one is badly informed herein. Never- 
theless, he foresaw coming gloom. He 
avowed to himself that all this „ bril- 
liancy was obscure. Did he compre- 
hend ? No. Did he divine ? No. What 
was there behind this letter ? — an open- 
ing of folding-doors, and, at the same 
time, a disquieting closure. On one 
side, avowal ; on the other side, enigma. 

Avowal and enigma — those two 
mouths, the one inciting and the other 
menacing — with the same word : 
“Dare!” 

Never had the perfidy of chance taken 
its measures better ; and never had it 
brought temptation more opportunely. 
It was at a troubled minute, that the 
offer was made to him, and that there 
was held before him, in all its splendor, 
the bosom of the sphinx. 

Gwynplaine was overwhelmed. 

There is a certain fume of evil which 
precedes crime, and which the con- 
science cannot inhale. Uprightness, 
when tempted, has the faint nausea of 
helh What is half-opened sends forth 
an exhalation, that warns the strong 


208 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


and makes dizzy the weak. Gwyn- 
plaine experienced this mysterious un- 
easiness. 

Dilemmas, at once transitory and stub- 
born, floated before him. The misdeed, 
persevering in ofi’ering itself, took form 
— the next day, midnight, London 
Bridge, the foot-boy. Should he go ? 
Yes! cried the flesh. No! cried the soul. 

Let it be said, however — singular as 
it may seem at the first glance — that he 
did not once address this question to 
himself with perfect distinctness : — 
Should he go? Actions meriting re- 
proach have their reserved corners. 
Like brandies that are too strong, we 
do not drink them at one gulp. We 
put the glass down ; we will see, pres- 
ently ; the first drop has already a 
strange taste. 

What is certain is, that he felt him- 
self impelled backward toward the un- 
known. 

And he shuddered. And he had a 
glimpse of something tottering to its 
fall. And he threw himself back, 
seized again from all sides by dismay. 
He shut his eyes. He made efforts to 
discredit the adventure in his own mind 
and to bring himself back to a doubt 
of his own sanity. Evidently this was 
for the better. The wisest thing for 
him to do, was to believe that he was 
mad. 

Fatal fever. Every man, surprised by 
the unforeseen, has known in his life 
such tragical pulsations. The observer 
always listens anxiously to the echo of 
blows, dealt by the battering-ram of 
destiny against the conscience. 

Alas ! Gwynplaine interrogated him- 
self. To ask questions, when duty is 
precisely defined, is already to be de- 
feated. 

Besides — a point to be noted — the 
effrontery of the adventure, which 
might perhaps have shocked a vicious 
man, was not apparent to him. He 
did not know what cynicism is. He 


saw but the greatness of this w'oman. 
Alas! he was flattered. His vanity 
could only verify his triumph. Much 
more wit than innocence has, would 
have been requisite for him to conjec- 
ture that he might be an object of 
wantonness rather than of love. 

The mind is subject to invasions. The 
soul has its Vandals, evil thoughts, that 
come in and devastate our virtue. A 
thousand contrary ideas precipitated 
themselves upon Gwynplaine, one after 
another, and sometimes all at once. 
Then there was silence within him. 
Then he took his head between his 
hands, with an air of mournful contem- 
plation, as though gazing on a landscape 
at night. 

Suddenly, he was conscious of one 
thing — ^that he had ceased to think. 
His revery had reached that darksome 
moment, when every thing disap- 
pears. ^ 

He remarked, also, that he had not 
gone in. It might be two o’clock in the 
morning. 

He put the letter brought by the 
page into his side-pocket; but, perceiv- 
ing that it was on his heart, he removed 
it thence, and thrust it aU crumpled 
into the first handy pocket of his small- 
clothes. Then he turned his steps tow- 
ard the public-house ; went in quietly ; 
did not wake up the little Govicum, who 
was waiting for him, and had fallen 
asleep upon a table with his arms for 
pillow ; reclosed the door ; lighted a can- 
dle at the inn lantern ; drew the bolts; 
turned the key in the lock ; took me- 
chanically the precautions of a man 
who comes home late; mounted the 
steps of the Green-Box; crept into 
the old hut which served as his bed- 
room ; looked at IJrsus, who was asleep ; 
blew out his candle ; and did not lie 
down. 

An hour passed thus. At last wearier 
out, figuring to himself that bed i; 
sleep, he laid his head on his pillov 


FROM GAY TO GRAVE. 


209 


without undressing, and conceded so 
far to darkness as to close his eyes. But 
the tempest, that assailed him, had not 
ceased for an instant. Sleeplessness is 
night’s ill-usage of man. Gwynplaine 
sutfered greatly. For the first time in 
his life, he was not pleased with him- 
self. Inmost sadness mingled with 
vanity satisfied. What to do? Day- 
light came. He heard Ursus get up, 
and did not raise his eyelids. Ko 
relaxation, however. He thought over 
the letter. All the words came back 
to him in a sort of chaos. Thought 
becomes fluid, under certain violent 
blasts from within the soul. It falls in- 
to convulsions ; it raises itself up ; and 
there goes forth from it something that 
resembles the dull roaring of the "v^aves. 
Flood, ebb, shocks, whirlings, hesita- 
tions of the billow before the reef, hail 
and rain, clouds with openings wherein 
is light, wretched clearings away of 
futile foam, mad acclivities suddenly 
crumbling away, immense efibrts lost, 
appearance of shipwreck on all sides, 
shadows and dispersions — all this, 
which is in the abyss, is in man. Gwyn- 
plaine was a prey to this torment. 

At the very height of his anguish, 
his eyelids being still drooped, he 
heard an exquisite voice that said : — 
“Are you asleep, Gwynplaine? ” — He' 
opened his eyes with a starl, and sat 
up. The door of the robing-room was 
half-open, and Dea appeared at the 
entrance. In her eyes and upon her 
lips was her ineffable smile. She 
stood up there, charming in the uncon- 
scious serenity of her radiance. There 
was a moment of something like sanc- 
tity. Gwynplaine looked at her, trem- 
bling, dazzled, awakened. Awakened 
from what ? From sleep ? Ho ; from 
sleeplessness. It was she, it was Dea ; 
and forthwith he felt in the very 
depth of his being the indefinable 
vanishing away of the tempest, and 
the sublime descent of good upon 
14 


evil. The miracle of the look from 
on high was effected ; the blind one, 
soft and luminous, put to flight by 
her sole presence all the gloom that 
was on him ; the curtain of cloud was 
lifted from his spirit, as though drawn 
off by an invisible hand ; and Gwyn- 
plaine — celestial enchantment — found 
the azure reentering his conscience. 
Through the virtue of this angel, he 
suddenly became again Gwynplaine 
the innocent, the great, the good. In 
the soul, as in creation, there are these 
mysterious concurrences. Both were 
silent, she the light, he the abyss, she 
divine, he pacified ; and Dea shone re- 
splendent above Gwynplaine’s stormy 
heart, with the indescribable effect of a 
star upon the ocean. 

II. 

FEOM GAY TO GEAVE. 

How simple is a miracle! It was 
breakfast-time in the Green-Box, and 
Dea came, quite naturally, to know 
why Gwynplaine had not appeared at 
their little morning table. 

— You! exclaimed Gwynplaine, and 
that was all. There was for him no 
longer any horizon or any vision, save 
the heaven in which was Dea. 

He, who has not observed the imme- 
diate smile of the sea, after the hurri- 
cane, cannot comprehend these lulls. 
Hothing becomes calm more quickly 
than whirlpools. This comes from 
their tendency to absorb. Thus is it 
with the human heart. Hot always, 
however. 

Dea had but to show herself, and all 
the light that was in Gwynplaine 
passed from him to her. There re- 
mained behind the dazzled Gwyn- 
plaine only a flight of phantoms. 
What a pacifier is adoration ! 

Some moments afterward, the pair 
were seated one before the other. 


210 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Ursus between them, Homo at their 
feet. The tea-urn, under which a 
small lamp was burning, was on the 
table. Fibi and Vinos were outside, 
and attended to serving. 

Their breakfast, like the supper, was 
taken in the central compartment. 
From the manner in which the ex- 
tremely narrow table was placed, Dea 
turned her back to the opening in the 
partition, that corresponded with the 
entrance-dpor of the Green-Box. 

Their knees were touching. Gwyn- 
plaine poured out Dea’s tea. 

Dea blew gracefully into her cup. 
All at once she sneezed. There was 
at that moment, above the flame of 
the lamp, a smoke that was dispersing, 
and something like paper that was 
falling into ashes. It was the smoke 
that had made Dea sneeze. 

— What is that ? asked she. 

— Nothing, answered Gwynplaine. 

And he smiled. 

He had just burned the duchess’s 
letter. 

The conscience of the man, who 
loves her, is the loved woman’s guar- 
dian angel. 

To have the letter no longer upon 
him comforted him strangely; and 
Gwynplaine felt his rectitude as the 
eagle feels his wings. 

It seemed to him that the temptation 
took its departure with the smoke, and 
that, at the same time with the paper, 
the duchess crumbled into ashes. 

As they mingled their cups, drink- 
ing one after the other in the same, 
they talked. Lovers’ prattle, twitter- 
ing of sparrows.* Puerilities worthy of 
Mother Goose, and of Homer. Go not 
beyond two loving hearts, in search of 
poetry; in search of music, go not 
beyond two kisses that discourse. 

— Do you know one thing ? 

— No. 

— Gwynplaine, I dreamed that we 
were beasts, and that we had wings. 


— Wings; that means birds, mur- 
mured Gwynplaine. 

— Beasts ; that means angels, grum- 
bled Ursus. 

The talk went on : 

— If you did not exist, Gwynplaine. 
— Well? 

— There would be no good God. 

— The tea is too hot. You will burn 
yourself, Dea. 

— Blow into my cup. 

— How lovely you are this morning! 

— Imagine; there are all sorts of 
things that I want to tell you. 

— Say on. 

— I love you. 

— I adore you. 

And Ursus made this remark, aside : 

— By heaven ! these are good peo- 
ple. 

For lovers, how exquisite are inter- 
vals of silence! Little heaps of love 
are piled up ; and anon they break out 
softly. 

There was a pause, after which Dea 
exclaimed : 

— If you only knew. ' In the • even- 
ing, when we are playing the piece, 
at the moment when my hand touches 

your forehead Oh ! you have a 

noble head, Gwynplaine At the 

instant when I feel your hair between 
my Angers, I tremble, I have within me a 
heavenly joy ; I say to myself : In all this 
world of blackness that shuts me in, in 
this universe of solitude, in the immense 
and obscure desolation where I exist, 
in this fearful tremor of myself and of 
every thing, I have one support to lean 
upon. It is he — that is yourself! 

— Oh ! you love me, said Gwjmplaine. 
I, too, have but you upon earth. You 
are every thing for me. Dea, what 
would you have me do ? Do you want 
any thing ? What is needful for you ? 

Dea answered : 

— I do not know. I am happy. 

— Oh ! replied Gwynplaine, we are 
happy ! 


FEOil GAY TO GRAVE. 


TJrsus lifted up his voice severely.* 

— All ! you are happy ! That’s a 
contravention. I have warned you of 
it already. Ah ! you are happy ! Man- 
age, then, so that no one may see you. 
Occupy the least possible space. Hap- 
piness ought to thrust itself into holes. 
Make yourselves still smaller than you 
are, if you are able. God measures the 
greatness of happiness by the littleness 
of the happy. Contented folks ought 
to hide themselves like malefactors. 
Ah I you sparkle, paltry glowworms 
that you are ; zounds I they will tread 
upon you, and they will do well. What 
are they, all these' “ my loveys ! ” lam 
no duenna, I, whose business it is to 
watch lovers billing and cooing. In 
short, you weary me. To the devil 
with you I 

And conscious that his harsh accent 
was softening into tenderness, he drown- 
ed this emotion in a deep grunt. 

— Father, said Dea, how loud you are 
talking ! 

— It is because I don’t like to have 
people too happy, replied Hrsus. 

Here Homo gave forth an echo to 
Ursus. A growl was heard under the 
lovers’ feet. 

Hrsus leaned over and put his hand 
upon Homo’s skull. 

— ^here it is! You, too, you are in 
a bad humor. You growl. You bristle 
up your lock of hair on your wolf’s 
pate. You don’t like little love-affairs. 
That’s because you are steady. It’s all 
the same ; hush ! You have spoken ; 
you have given your opinion ; very 
well ; now silence I 

The wolf growled afresh. 

Hrsus looked under the table. 

— Quiet, then. Homo ! Come, come, 
don’t insist upon it, philosopher I 

But the wolf sat up, and showed his 
teeth toward the side where the door 
was. 

— What’s the matter with you, then ? 
said Hrsus. 


211 

And he clutched Homo by the skin 
of his neck. 

Dea — inattentive to the wolf’s gnash- 
ings of his teeth, given up to her own 
thoughts, and still dwelling within herself 
upon the sound of Gwynplaine’s voice 
— remained silent, in the sort of ecstasy 
common with the blind, which seems 
sometimes to supply them internally 
with a song to listen to, and to replace 
by certain strange ideal music the light 
that they lack. Blindness is a subter- 
ranean vault, -whence the profound 
eternal harmony is heard. 

While Hrsus, apostrophizing Homo, 
was lowering his head, Gwynplaine had 
raised his eyes. 

He was about to drink a cup of tea, 
and he did not drink it. He put it down 
upon the table with the slow movement 
of a spring that is relaxed; his fingers 
rested open ; and he remained motion- 
less, his eye fixed, no longer drawing 
his breath. 

A man was standing up behind Dea, 
in the doorway. 

This man was dressed in black, with 
an official lawyer’s-cape. He wore a 
wig that came down to his eyebrows, 
and he held in his hand an iron staff, 
tipped with a crown at both ends. 

The staff was short and heavy. 

Fancy to yourself Medusa sticking 
her head, divided in two, out of Para- 
dise. 

Hrsus, who had been startled by a 
new-comer, and who had raised his 
head without loosing Homo, recognized 
this redoubtable personage. 

He trembled from head to foot. 

He whispered in Gwynplaine’s ear : 

— It is the wapentake. 

Gwynplaine remembered. 

A word of surprise was about to es- 
cape him. He repressed it. 

The iron staff, terminating in a crown 
at both ends, was the iron weapon. 

It was from the iron weapon, on 
which the officers of urban justice took 


212 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


the oath before entering upon their du- 
ties, that the ancient wapentakes of the 
English police drew their authority. 

Beyond this man with the wig, in the 
shadow, one caught a glimpse of the 
dumfounded innkeeper. 

The man, without speaking a word, 
and impersonating the Muta Themis of 
the old charters, lowered his right arm 
over the radiant Dea, and, with the iron 
staff, touched Gwynplaine’s shoulders, 
while, with the thumb of his left hand, 
he pointed behind him to the door of 
the Green-Box. This double gesture, 
the more authoritative for having been 
executed silently, was as much as to 
say, Follow me. 

Pro signo exeundi sursum trahe^ says 
the Norman record. 

The individual, on whom the iron 
weapon had just been laid, had no other 
right than the right of obedience. No 
reply to that mute command. The severe 
penalties of the English law threatened 
the contumacious. 

Gwynplaine gave one start under 
this harsh touch of the law, and was 
then as if petrified. 

If, instead of simply being touched 
on the shoulder with the iron weapon, 
he had been violently beaten over the 
head with it, he could not have been 
more stunned. He recognized the sum- 
mons, to follow the officer of the police. 
But why ? He did not comprehend. 

IJrsus, on his part, also thrown into 
poignant anxiety, saw something dis- 
tinctly enough. He thought of the 
jugglers, and the preachers, their rivals ; 
of the Green-Box denounced; of the 
wolf, that offender ; of his own contest 
with the three inquisitors of Bishops- 
gate ; and, who knows ? perhaps — but 
this was terrifying — of the mischievous 
and seditious gabble of Gwynplaine 
concerning the royal authority. He 
trembled all over. 

Dea smiled. 

Neither Gwynplaine nor IJrsus ut- 


tered a word. Both had the same 
thought, not to alarm Dea. The wolf 
had it also, perhaps, for he ceased to 
growl. It is true that Ursus did not 
let him loose. 

Besides, Homo, upon occasion, had 
his own prudence. Who has not re- 
marked certain intelligent anxieties of 
the brutes ? 

Perhaps just so far as a wolf can com- 
prehend men, he felt himself an out- 
law. 

Gwynplaine stood up. 

No resistance was possible. Gwyn- 
plaine knew it. He recollected the 
words of Ursus. And no debate was 
feasible. 

He remained standing before the wa- 
pentake. 

The wapentake withdrew the weapon 
from the top of the shoulder, brought it 
back to himself, and held the iron staff 
straight up in the attitude of command, 
an attitude of the police, understood by 
everybody at that time, which signified 
the following order : 

— Let that man follow me, and no 
one else. Kemain all of you as you are. 
Silence ! 

No spectators allowed. The police 
has, in every age, had a liking for these 
dark affairs. 

That kind of seizure was called “ Se- 
questration of the person.” 

The wapentake, with one motion, and 
like a piece of mechanism that pivots 
on itself, turned his back and moved 
with a magisterial and solemn step tow- 
ard the outer door 'of the Green-Box. 

Gwynplaine looked at Ursus. 

Ursus performed a pantomimic ges- 
ture, made up of a shrug of the shoul- 
ders, his elbows on his hips, with his 
hands apart, and his eyebrows knit like 
chevrons, which signifies resignation to 
the unforeseen. 

Gwynplaine looked at Dea. She 
dreamed. She continued to smile. 

He placed the tips of his fingers to 


LEX, EEX, EEX. 


213 


liis lips and waved lier a kiss, unspeak- 
ably tender. 

Ursus, relieved to a certain extent of 
kis terror, by the turned back of the 
wapentake, seized the opportunity of 
slipping into Gwynplaine’s ear this 
whisper : 

— On your life, say not a word be- 
fore you are examined ! 

Gwynplaine, with the caution one 
uses not to make a noise in a sick-room, 
took down his hat and cloak from the 
partition, wrapped himself up in his 
cloak to the eyes, and pulled his hat 
down over his forehead. Not having 
been to bed, he wore yet his working- 
dress and on his neck his leather collar ; 
he looked once more at Dea ; the wa- 
pentake, having gained the outer door 
of the Green-Box, raised his staff and 
began to descend the little stairway of 
egress; then Gwynplaine took up his 
march as if this man had drawn him 
by an invisible chain ; TJrsus saw Gwyn- 
plaine leave the Green-Box ; the wolf, 
at this moment, began a plaintive growl, 
but TJrsus held him in control, and said 
to him in a low tone, 

— He will come back. 

In the court-yard, Master Nicless, 
by a gesture at once servile and imperi- 
ous, stopped the cries of terror in the 
mouths of Vinos and Eibi, who had 
seen with alarm Gwynplaine carried off, 
and the mourning garments and iron 
staff of the wapentake. 

Two petrifactions were these two 
girls. They had the fixedness of sta- 
lactites. 

Govicum, bewildered, stared out of 
a half-opened window. 

The wapentake walked some steps 
in advance of Gwynplaine, without 
turning round or looking at him, with 
that icy composure imparted by the 
consciousness of being the law. 

The two men, in the silence of the 
grave, got clear of the court, crossed 
the dark bar-room, and issued out upon 


the square. There were some pass- 
ers-by gathered before the door of the 
inn, and the justice of the quorum at 
the head of a squad of police. These 
spectators, amazed, without breathing 
a word, gave way, and got in line 
with English discipline before the staff 
of the constable ; the wapentake took 
the direction of the small streets then 
called the Little Strand which ran along 
the Thames ; and Gwynplaine, having 
on his right and on his left the men of 
the justice of the quorum moving for- 
ward in double file, pale, without a ges- 
ture, without other movement than the 
steps he took, covered with his cloak 
as with a winding-sheet, slowly left the 
inn, marching mute behind the silent 
man, like a statue following a ghost. 

III. 

LEX, EEX, EEX. 

Aeeest without accusation, which 
would very much astonish the English of 
to-day, was a police procedure frequent- 
ly employed at that time in Great Brit- 
ain. They had recourse to it especial- 
ly in those delicate matters which the 
lettres-de-cacJiet provided for in France, 
and, in spite of the habeas corpus, even 
under George II. ; and one of the charges, 
against which Walpole had to defend 
himself, was that of having ordered or 
permitted the arrest of Neuhoff in this 
way. The charge probably had little 
foundation, for Neuhoff, King of Cor- 
sica, was sent to jail by his creditors. 

This quiet taking in custody, of which 
the Holy V oehme made great use in Ger- 
many, was permitted by the German 
common-law, which governed one-half 
of the old English statutes, and recom- 
mended, in certain cases, by the Nor- 
paan common-law, which governed the 
other half. The chief of police of Jus- 
tinian’s palace was called the “ imperial 
dummy,” silentiarius imperialis. The 


214 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


English magistrates who practised this 
sort of arrest, fell back upon numerous 
Norman maxims : — Canes latrant^ ser- 
gentes silent. Sergenter agere, id est. 
tacere. They cited the learned Lundul- 
phus, paragraph 16 — Facit imperator 
silentium. They cited the charter of 
King Philippe of 1307, Multos tenebi- 
mus bastonerios^ qui^ obmutescentes ser- 
gentare mleunt. They cited the statutes 
of Henry I. of England, chapter 53, 
Surge signo jussus. Taciturnior esto. 
Hog est esse in captione regis. They 
specially relied on this prescription, re- 
garded as constituting a part of the an- 
cient feudal franchises of England: 
“ Under the viscounts are the bailiffs of 
the sword, who ought virtuously to 
punish with the sword all who keep bad 
company, men rendered infamous by 
any crime, fugitives and pirates, .... 
and ought so vigorously and discreetly 
to apprehend them, that honest people 
who are peaceable may be peaceably 
guarded, and that the evil doers may be 
impaled.” To be arrested in this man- 
ner was being taken “ at the blade of 
the sword.” (Yetus Consuetudo Nor- 
manniie, MS., 1 part, Sect. 1. Cap. II.) 
The jurisconsults invoked, moreover, in 
Gharta Ludovici Hutini pro Norman- 
nis the chapter Serrientes spathce. The 
servientes spatTicSy in the gradual ap- 
proach of the low Latin to our own 
idioms, became the sergentes spadm. 

These noiseless arrests were just the 
opposite of the Hue and Cry, and signi- 
fied that it was expedient to keep quiet 
until certain dark matters had been 
cleared up. 

Their meaning was, points reserved. 

They indicated, in the administration 
of the police, a certain amount of state 
policy. The law term private., which 
meant to say, roith closed doors^ was ap- 
plicable to this kind of arrests. It was in 
this way that Edward HI., according to 
some chroniclers, had caused Mortimer 
to be arrested in the bed of his mother, 


Isabella of France. Here, again, we may 
doubt a little, since Mortimer sustained 
a siege in his own city before being cap- 
tured. 

Warwick, the King-maker, freely 
availed himself of this mode of “en- 
trapping the people.” 

Cromwell employed it, particularly in 
Connaught ; and it was with this pre- 
caution of silence that Trailie Arcklo, 
a relative of Count Osmond, was ar- 
rested in Kilmacaugh. 

This taking in custody by the simple 
gesture of the officer represented more 
nearly an order for appeai'ance than an 
order of toest. 

Sometimes it was nothing more than 
a process of information, and even im- 
plied, by the silence imposed on every- 
body, a certain regard for the person 
arrested. 

To the people at large, little ac- 
quainted with these nice distinctions, 
it was particularly alarming. 

England, let it not be forgotten, was 
not in 1705, or even much later, what 
she is in our day. The whole thing was 
exceedingly confused and exceedingly 
oppressive. Daniel Defoe, who had had 
a taste of the pillory, somewhere char- 
acterized the social order of England in 
these words, “the iron hands of the 
law.” There was not only the law, 
there was the despotic authority. Ee- 
member Steele driven out of Parlia- 
ment, Locke driven from his chair, 
Hobbes and Gibbon forced to fly, 
Charles Churchill, Hume, Priestley, 
persecuted, John Wilkes sent to the 
Tower. Kun over — the list will be a 
long one — ^the victims of the statute 
of seditious libel. The Inquisition had 
been in a measure spread over all 
Europe ; its police practices had founded 
a school. A monstrous outrage upon 
all rights w'as possible in England, 
which is often recalled by the comedy 
of the Gazetier Cuirasse. In the mid- 
dle of the eighteenth century, Louis 


UESUS PLAYS THE SPY ON THE POLICE. 


Xy. caused tlie writers who displeased 
him to he kidnapped in Piccadilly. It 
is true that George II. seized the Pre- 
tender in Prance, in,the very centre of 
the opera-house. There were two ex- 
ceedingly long arms ; that of the King 
of Prance reached all the way to Lon- 
don, and that of the King of England 
all the way to Paris. Such was liberty. 

Let us add that they freely executed 
people in the interior of the jails; jug- 
glery mixed up with death-warrants; 
hideous expedient to which England is 
going hack at this moment ; thus giving 
to the world the singular spectacle of a 
great people, who, wishing to improve, 
choose the worst, and who, having be- 
fore them on one side the past, and on 
the other progress, make a mistake in 
the countenance, and take night for 
day. 

ly. 

UESUS PLAYS THE SPY ON THE POLICE. 

As we have said, according to the 
severe police regulations of the time, 
the summons to follow the wapentake, 
addressed to one person, carried with it 
to all other persons present the com- 
mand that they were not to budge. 

Some busybodies, however, proved 
obstinate, and accompanied at a dis- 
tance the procession that carried off 
Gwynplaine. 

Ursus was of the number. i , 

IJrsus had been quite as much stupe- 
fied as he could well be. But Ursus, so 
often assailed by the surprises of his 
wandering life, and by unlooked-for 
acts of malice, had, like a ship-of-war, 
his “ Clear the decks for action,” which 
summoned to the post of battle all the 
crew, that is to say, all his wits. 

He hastened to recover from his stu- 
pefaction, and set himself to thinking. 
The point now was not to be excited ; 
the point was to be ready for any thing. 


215 

To be ready for any thing is the duty 
of whosoever is not an idiot. 

Do not seek to understand, but act 
immediately. Ursus asked himself : 

— What’s to be done? 

When Gwynplaine had gone off, 
Ursus found himself between two appre- 
hensions: apprehension for Gwynplaine, 
which told him to follow ; apprehension 
for himself, which told him to stay 
where he was. 

Ursus had the courage of a fly and the 
composure of the sensitive-plant. His 
quakings were indescribable. Never- 
theless, he made up his mind heroically, 
and determined to brave the law and fol- 
low the wapentake, so great was his anx- 
iety as to what might befall Gwynplaine. 

He had needs be very much fright- 
ened, to have so much courage. 

To what valorous deeds fright can 
push a hare ! 

The terrified chamois leaps over the 
precipice. To be scared even to heed- 
lessness is one form of fright. 

Gwynplaine had been kidnapped 
rather than arrested. The act of the 
law had been so quickly executed that 
the fair-ground, which, indeed, was 
little frequented at that hour of the 
morning, had not been greatly stirred 
up. No one suspected in the booths of 
Tarrinzeau-Field that the wapentake 
had gone. to look for the Man Who 
Laughs. Hence there was no crowd. 

Gwynplaine, thanks to his cloak and 
his felt hat, which came very nearly to- 
gether over his face, could not be recog- 
nized by the passers-by. 

Before going out to follow Gwyn- 
plaine, Ursus observed one precaution. 
He took aside Master Nicless, the boy 
Govicum, Fibi, and Vinos, and enjoined 
upon them the most absolute silence in 
the presence of Dea, who was ignorant 
of all ; that they should take care not to 
breathe a word that might lead her to 
suspect what had happened ; that they 
should account to her for the absence 


216 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


of Gwynplaine and Ursus by the busi- 
ness affiiirs of tbe Green-Box ; that, 
moreover, it would soon be the hour for 
her mid-day nap ; and that, before Dea 
had waked up, he would have returned, 
he, Ursus, with Gwynplaine — all this 
matter having been nothing more than a 
misapprehension, a mistake, as they say 
in England ; that it would be very easy 
for them to enlighten the magistrates 
and the police ; that they could put their 
finger upon the blunder; and that he 
and Gwynplaine would come back forth- 
with. Above all, no one should say 
any thing to Dea. These instructions 
given, he started. 

Ursus could follow Gwynplaine, with- 
out being observed. Although he kept 
himself at the greatest possible dis- 
tance, he so ordered it as not to lose 
sight of him. Boldness in watching is 
the bravery of the timid. 

After all, and solemn as had been the 
preparations, Gwynplaine had, perhaps, 
only been summoned to appear before 
a magistrate of lower grade, for some 
trifling misdemeanor. 

Ursus said to himself that this ques- 
tion was going to be determined imme- 
diately. 

The answer would be given, under 
his own eyes, by the - direction the 
squad carrying off Gwynplaine would 
take at the moment when, having ar- 
rived at the borders of Tarrinzeau-Eield, 
they should reach the entrance to the 
alleys of the Little Strand. 

If it turned to the left, they were con- 
ducting Gwynplaine to the Town-hall 
of Southwark. Nothing to fear in that 
case ; some pitiful municipal offence, a 
reprimand from the magistrate, two or 
three shillings’ fine, then Gwynplaine 
would be discharged, and the represen- 
tation of ChaoB Conquered would take 
place that evening just as usual. No- 
body would be the wiser. 

If the squad turned to the right, it 
was serious. 


On that side there were some rough 
places. 

At the moment when the wapentake, 
leading the two files of policemen, be- 
tween whom marched Gwynplaine, ar- 
rived at the little streets, Ursus, holding 
his breath, looked on. There are mo- 
ments when one’s whole being passes 
into the eyes. 

To which side would they turn ? 

They turned to the right. 

Ursus, staggering with fright, leaned 
against a wall to save himself from fall- 
ing. 

There is nothing so hypocritical as 
the remaik men make to themselves, 
“ I should like to know what I’ve got 
to do.” EeaUy, they would like noth- 
ing of the kind. They are in great fear. 
The agony is complicated by a vague 
effort not to make up their minds. 
They will not admit it, but they would 
willingly back out; and when they 
have gone forward, they reproach them- 
selves for having done so. 

This is what Ursus did. He thought, 
with a shiver : 

— Here’s a matter that brings trou- 
ble. I should always have heard of that 
soon enough. "What am I about in 
following Gwynplaine ? 

Having made this reflection, as man 
is nothing but a contradiction, he re- 
doubled his steps, and, mastering his 
anxiety, hurried on to get nearer the 
squad, so that, in the labyrinth of South- 
wark streets, he might not let the 
thread be broken between Gwynplaine 
and himself. 

The procession of the police could 
not move fast, by reason of its impor- 
tance. 

The wapentake headed it. 

The justice of the quorum brought up 
the rear. 

This order involved a certain dilatori- 
ness. 

All the majesty possible to a bailiff’s 
deputy shone in this justice of the 


UESUS PLAYS THE SPY ON THE POLICE. 


217 


quorum. His costume was a compro- 
mise between tbe gorgeous attire of an 
Oxford Doctor of Music, and the sober 
black garb of a Cambridge Doctor of 
Divinity. He wore the dress of a gen- 
tleman under a long godebert^ which is 
a cloak trimmed with the fur of the 
Norway hare. He was half gothic and 
half modern, having a wig like Lamoi- 
gnon’s, and soldier’s gauntlets like 
Tristam the Hermit’s. His full, round 
eye looked Gwynplaine through and 
through with the stare of an owl. B[e 
marched in step. Impossible to see a 
good man more savage. 

Ursus, having lost his way for a mo- 
ment, in the confused tangle of the al- 
leys, came up again with the procession, 
near Saint Mary Overy. It had fortu- 
nately been retarded in the open space 
before the church, by a fight between 
children and curs, a common incident 
in the streets of London ; dogs and boys, 
say the old police registers, which put 
the curs before the children. 

A man carried before a magistrate by 
the agents of the police being, after all, 
a very commonplace incident, and each 
one having his own occupations, the 
busybodies had dispersed. There re- 
mained, on the track of Gwynplaine, 
only Ursus. 

They passed in front of the two chap- 
els, facing each other, of the Eecrea- 
tive Religionists and the Hallelujah 
League, two sects of that period which 
still exist to-day. Then the procession 
wound from alley to alley, choosing, by 
preference, the roads^ not yet built up, 
the rows where the grass was putting 
forth, and the solitary lanes, and made 
many zigzags. 

At last it stopped. 

It was in a very narrow lane. There 
were no houses. This lane was made 
up of two walls ; the one on the left, 
low ; the other on the right, high. ‘The 
high wall was black and of Saxon ma- 
sonry, with battlements, scorpions, and 


squares of heavy iron grating over the 
narrow-breathing places. No windows ; 
only here and there slits, which were 
the old embrasures for the slingers and 
crossbowmen. At the foot of the high 
wall, like a hole at the bottom of a rat- 
trap, might be seen a little low-arched 
wicket-gate. 

This wicket-gate, built in a massive 
semicircular archway of stone, had a 
grated judas-hole, a heavy hammer, a 
huge lock, knotty and powerful hinges, 
a complete entanglement of nails, an 
armor of plates and coats of paint, and 
was more of iron than of wood. 

Nobody in the lane. No shops. No 
passers-by. But one heard an incessant 
roar near at hand, as if the lane had a 
torrent running parallel with it. This 
was a hurly-burly of voices and ve- 
hicles. It is likely that on the other 
side of the black building there was a 
great street, doubtless the principal 
street of Southwark, which terminated 
at one end in the highway to Can- 
terbury, and at the other in London 
Bridge. 

Throughout the whole length of this 
lane of the footpads, beyond the pro- 
cession shutting in Gwynplaine, no 
other human face was to be seen but 
the wan profile of Ursus, risking obser- 
vation, and half thrust forward in the 
shadow of a corner of the wall, looking 
and afraid to look. He had taken his 
stand at a turn where the street made a 
zigzag. 

The squad was gathered before the 
wicket. 

Gwynplaine was in the centre, but 
had behind him the wapentake and his 
iron staff 

The justice of the quorum raised the 
hammer and struck three blows. 

The peep-hole opened. 

The justice of the quorum said: 

— By her Majesty’s order. 

The heavy door of oak and iron 
turned on its hinges, and a dark and 


218 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


chilling opening presented itself, like 
the mouth of a cave. The hideous 
vault stretched away into the shadow. 

TJrsus saw Gwynplaine disappear un- 
derneath. 

Y. 

A BAD PLACE, 

The wapentake entered, after Gwyn- 
plaine. 

Then the justice of the quorum. 

Then the whole squad. 

The wicket closed again. 

The heavy gate refitted itself hermet- 
ically into its stone frame ; one could 
not see who had opened or who had 
shut it. The holts seemed to return in- 
to their sockets, of themselves. Some 
of these hits of mechanism, invented by 
the ancient spirit of intimidation, still 
exist in very old places of confinement. 
A gate, whereat the porter was not vis- 
ible. That made the threshold of the 
prison resemble the threshold of the 
tomb. 

This wicket was the lower gate of 
Southwark jail. 

Nothing in this mouldy and crabbed 
edifice belied the discourteous appear- 
ance suitable to a prison. 

A pagan temple, built by the old 
Catieuchlans for the Mogons — ancient 
English divinities — turned into a palace 
for Ethelwulf, into a fortress for Saint 
Edward, then raised to the rank of pris- 
on in 1199, by John Lackland ; such 
was Southwark jail. This jail, at first 
divided by a street, as Chenonceaux is 
by a river, had been, for a century or 
two, a suburban gate ; afterward, the ' 
passage had been closed. There remain 
in England some prisons of this kind : 
for instance, in London, Newgate; at 
Canterbury, Westgate ; at Edinburgh, 
Canongate. In France, the Bastille 
was originally a gate. 

Almost all the English jails presented 
the same aspect, a huge wall without, 


a perfect hive of cells within. No gloom 
could equal that of these gothic prisons, 
where the spider and the law w’ove 
their webs, and where that incarnate 
ray of light, John Howard, had not yet 
penetrated. They might all have been 
called, like the old gehenna of Brussels, 
Trauerberg, the house of mourning. 

Before these harsh and barbarous 
buildings, men felt the same painful 
emotions as the ancient na^dgators be- 
fore the slave-hells of which Plautus 
speaks, iron-sounding isles, ferricre- 
piditce insulcB^ when they passed near 
enough to hear the noise of the 
chains. 

Southwark jail, an old abode of ex- 
orcisms and tortures, was at first spe- 
cially devoted to sorcerers, as was shown 
by these two lines, engraved on a de- 
faced stone above the wicket : 

Sunt arreptitii vexati dsemone multo. 

Est energumenus quern dsemon possidet unus.* 

Lines which paint the delicate shades 
of difference between the demoniac and 
the energumen. 

Above this inscription was fastened, 
flat against the wall, the sign of a high 
court of justice, a ladder, originally of 
wood, but changed into stone by burial 
in the petrifying soil of Apsley-Gowis 
near Woburn Abbey. 

The prison of Southwark, now de- 
molished, looked upon two streets be- 
tween which, as gate^ it had formerly 
served for passage ; and it had two en- 
trances — on the main street, the show- 
gate reserved for the authorities, and on 
the lane the gate of suffering, destined 
for all other living men. And for dead 
men, too ; when a prisoner died in jail, 
his carcass went out that way. As 
good a discharge as any. 

Death is the being let loose into the 
infinite. 

It was by the suffering-entrance that 

* A host of demons vex the man possessed. 
One demon tears the energumen’ s breast. 


219 


WHAT MAGISTEACIES THEEE WEEE, ETC. 


Gwynplaine had just been brought into 
the prison. 

The lane, as we have said, was noth- 
ing more than a little stony road, con- 
fined between two walls facing each 
other. Of this sort is the passage at 
Brussels called Rue Une Personne. The 
two walls were of unequal height ; the 
high wall was of the prison, the low 
wall of the church-yard. This low wall, 
which enclosed the putrefying dregs of 
the jail, was scarcely higher than a man. 
It had a gate opposite the jail-wicket. 
The dead had only the trouble of cross- 
ing the street. On the high wall was 
fastened a sheriff’s ladder ; on the low 
wall, and just opposite, was sculptured 
a death’s head. One side did not en- 
liven the other. 

YI. 

WHAT MAGISTEACIES THEEE WEEE UN- 

DEE THE PEEIWIG9 OF OLDEN TIME. 

Ant one who at that moment had 
been looking from the other side of the 
prison, the front side, would have seen 
tlie main street of Southwark, and 
might have remarked, standing before 
the monumental and official gate of 
the jail, a travelling-carriage, distin- 
guishable by its coach-box, with what 
we should call a cabriolet top now- 
adays. A circle of curious bystanders 
surrounded this carriage. It bore a 
coat-of-arms ; and a person had been 
seen to get out of it and go into the 
prison — probably a magistrate, the 
crowd conjectured, since the English 
magistrates are often noblemen and al- 
most always have the right to bear 
arms. In France, the shield and the 
robe were hardly compatible. The 
Duke of St. Simon said, speaking of 
magistrates, “people of that business.” 
In England, a nobleman was not dis- 
honored by being a judge. 

The travelling magistrate is an Eng- 


lish institution; he is called circuit 
judge ; and nothing was more natural 
than to see in this carriage the vehicle 
of a magistrate on circuit. What was 
less easy to understand was, that the 
presumed magistrate had stepped, not 
out of the carriage itself, but down 
from the front box, which is not usually 
the master’s place. Another remarka- 
ble circumstance: at that time there 
were two ways of travelling in England 
— ^by stage-coach, for a shilling every 
five miles, and by post on horseback 
at three pence a mile and four pence 
to the postilion for every posting-sta- 
tion. A private equipage, which 
treated itself to relays of horses, paid 
as many shdlings per horse and per mile 
as the traveller on horseback paid pence. 
Nowthe carriage standing before South- 
wark jail had the princely luxury of 
four horses and two postilions. Finally 
— and this at the same time excited and 
disconcerted conjecture to the last 
point — the carriage was sedulously 
closed. The side panels were up ; so 
were the blinds inside the glasses; 
every opening where the eye could pene- 
trate was stopped ; from without noth- 
ing could be seen within, and it was prob- 
able that, from within, nothing could be 
seen without. Besides, there did hot 
seem to be any one in the carriage. 

Southwark being in Surrey, the pris- 
on of Southwark was in the jurisdic- 
tion of the sheriff of the county of Sur- 
rey. These district jurisdictions were 
very common in England. Thus, for 
instance, the Tower of London was sup- 
posed not to be situated in any county, 
that is to say, legally. It was, in some 
sense, in the air. The Tower recog- 
nized no other juridical authority than 
its constable, entitled custos turris. The 
Tower had its own peculiar jurisdiction, 
its church, its court of justice, and its 
government. The authority of the cm- 
to8^ or constable, reached beyond Lon- 
don, over twenty-one hamlets. As in 


220 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Great Britain, legal singularities are 
grafted one upon another, the Master 
of the Ordnance of England was neces- 
sarily an official of the Tower of Lon- 
don. 

Other legal customs seem still more 
quaint. Thus the English Admiralty- 
Court consults and applies the laws of 
Ehodes, and of the French island of 
Oleron, which was once English. 

The sheriff of a county was a very 
important person. He was always an 
esquire, and sometimes a knight. He 
was styled in the old charters spectabi- 
lis^ “a man to look at,” intermediate 
title between illustris and clarissimus^ 
inferior to the former, superior to the 
latter. The county sheriffs were origi- 
nally chosen by the people; but Ed- 
ward IL, and after him Henry IV., 
having reclaimed this appointment for 
the crown, the sheriffs had become an 
emanation of royalty. All received 
their commission from the sovereign, 
save the sheriff of "Westmoreland, who 
was hereditary, and the sheriffs of Lon- 
don and Middlesex, who were elected 
by the livery in the Common Hall. The 
sheriffs of Wales and Chester possessed 
certain fiscal prerogatives. All these 
offices still remain in England; but, 
gradually worn down by the contact of 
customs and ideas, they no longer wear 
the same face. It was the duty of the 
county sheriff to escort and protect the 
circuit judges. He had, as it were, two 
arms, his two officers ; the under-sheriff 
his right arm, and the justice of the quo- 
rum his left. The justice of the quo- 
rum, together with the bailiff of the hun- 
dred, styled wapentake, interrogated, 
and, at the sheriff’s responsibility, im- 
prisoned, for trial by the circuit judges, 
all thieves, murderers, rioters, vaga- 
bonds, and felons generally. The shade 
of difference between the under-sheriff 
and the justice of the quorum, in their 
hierarchic service before the sheriff, was 
that the under-sheriff accompmied him^ 


and the justice of the quorum attended 
Mm. The sheriff held two courts, one 
fixed and central, the county court, and 
one travelling, the sheriff’s circuit. He 
thus represented unity and ubiquity. 
As judge, he could let himself be as- 
sisted and informed, on difficult points 
of law, by a sergeant of the coif, called 
sergens coifce^ that is, a sergeant-at-law, 
who wears, under his black gap, a coif 
of white cambric. The sheriff used to 
empty the places of confinement ; when 
he arrived in a town of his county, he 
had the right of clearing out the prison- 
ers, which might be done by discharging 
or by hanging them, and w^s called the 
jail-delivery. The sheriff presented 
the bill of indictment to the twenty- 
four grand-jurymen : if they approved 
it they wrote on it billa 'cera ; if they 
disapproved, they wrote in 

the latter case the indictment was void, 
and the sheriff had the right to tear up 
the bill. If, during the deliberation, a 
juryman died, which by law acquitted 
the accused and rendered him innocent, 
the sheriff, whose right it had been to 
arrest the accused, had the right of set- 
ting him free. What made the sheriff 
especially considered and feared was, 
that his office authorized him to execute 
“all his majesty’s orders,” a dangerous 
latitude. Arbitrary power domiciles it- 
self in such phrases. The coroners and 
the officers called warders swelled the 
sheriff’s troop ; the clerks of the market 
lent their assistance ; and he had a very 
handsome following of horsemen and 
servants in livery. The sheriff, says 
Chamberlayne, is “the life of law, of 
justice, and of the county.” 

In England, an insensible demolition 
perpetually pulverizes and disunites law 
and custom. In our day, we may be 
sure, neither the sheriff nor th^ wapen- 
take nor the justice of the quorum could 
administer their offices as they did then. 
In old England there was a certain con- 
fusion of powers; and badly-defined 


SHUDDEEINGS. 


attributes led to encroachments which 
would be impossible at this day. The 
medley of police and law has ceased to 
exist. The names remain; the func- 
tions are modified. We believe the 
word wapentake has even changed its 
meaning. It used to signify a magis- 
tracy, it now signifies a territorial divi- 
sion ; it used to designate the chief of 
the hundred; it now designates the 
hundred or canton {centum). 

Finally, at that time, the sheriff of 
the county combined, with something 
more and something less, and condensed 
in his authority, at once royal and mu- 
nicipal, that of the two magistrates for- 
merly called in France the civil lieu- 
tenant of Paris, and the lieutenant of 
police. The civil lieutenant of Paris 
is well enough described by this old po- 
lice memorandum: “The civil lieuten- 
ant does not abhor family quarrels, be- 
cause the booty always comes to him ” 
(July 22, 1704). As to the lieutenant 
of police, a troublesome, multiform, and 
uncertain personage, he may be summed 
up in one of his best types, E6n4 d’Ar- 
genson, who, according to St. Simon, 
bore in his face the three judges of hell 
mingled. 

These three judges of hell were, as 
we have seen, at Bishopsgate in Lon- 
don. 

VII. 

SHUDDEEINGS. 

When Gwynplaine heard the wicket 
creaking with all its bolts, he trembled. 
It seemed to him that this gate, which 
had just shut, was the door of com- 
munication between light and darkness, 
looking from one side on the crowded 
earth, from the other on the world of 
the dead; that now all things Tfhich 
the sun illumines were behind him; 
and that he had crossed the boundary 
of life, and was outside. His heart 
sank within him. What were they going 


221 

to do with him? What did aU this 
mean? 

Where was he ? 

He saw nothing around him; he 
found himself in the dark. The gate, 
in closing, had rendered him blind for 
the moment. The window was shut, 
as well as the gate. Ho air-hole, no 
lantern. This was a precaution of the 
old times. It was forbidden to light 
the inner entrance of a jail, lest new- 
comers might make observations. 

Gwynplaine stretched out his hands, 
and touched the wall on his right and 
left ; he was in a passage. Gradually 
that cellar light, which oozes one knows 
not whence, and floats in dark places, 
and to which the dilated pupils adjust 
themselves, allowed him to distinguish 
a feature here and there ; and the pas- 
sage was dimly sketched before him. 

Gw3rQplaine, who had never had a 
glimpse of the severities of criminal law 
except through the exaggerations of 
Ursus, felt as if seized by an enormous 
hidden hand. It is frightful to be ma- 
nipulated by the unknown power of the 
law. One may be brave before every 
thing else, and yet disconcerted before 
justice. Why? because human justice 
is only a dim twilight, in which the 
judge gropes his way. Gwynplaine 
remembered what Ursus had said to 
him about the necessity of silence ; he 
wished to see Dea again ; there was in 
his situation something which might 
depend on his discretion, and which he 
did not want to irritate. Trying to ex- 
plain things sometimes makes them 
worse. Still, on the other hand, the 
pressure of this situation was so strong, 
that he ended by yielding to it, and 
could not refrain from a question. 

— Sirs, he asked, whither are you 
taking me ? 

There was no answer. 

This was the law of silent arrests; 
and the Herman text is formal : a silen- 
tiariis ostio pmpositis introducti sunt* 


222 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


This silence froze Gwynplaine. Up 
to that time he had believed himself 
strong ; he was self-sufficing ; to be self- 
sufficing is to be powerful. He had 
lived in isolation, imagining that to be 
isolated is to be impregnable. And 
now all at once he felt himself under 
the pressure of this hideous collective 
force. How could he contend with 
this nameless horror, the law ? He was 
breaking down under the perplexity. 
A fear of a novel species had found the 
weak place in his armor. Besides, he 
had not slept, had not eaten, had 
scarcely moistened his lips with a cup 
of tea. He had been partially delirious 
all night, and was still feverish. He was 
thirsty, perhaps hungry. An unsatisfied 
stomach deranges every thing. Since 
the previous night, he had been the 
prey of adventures. The emotions which 
tormented him sustained him ; without 
the hurricane, the sail would be a rag. 
But he recognized in himself the utter 
weakness of the strip of stuff which 
the wind ruffles till it is torn. He felt 
himself sinking. Was he going to fall 
to the ground unconscious? To faint 
is a woman’s resource, and a man’s hu- 
miliation. He straightened himself up, 
but he trembled. 

He had the feeling of a man who is 
losing his foothold. 

YIII. 

GEO ANINO. 

They moved. ^ 

They advanced in the passage. 

No preliminary record. No registrar’s 
desk. The prisons of that day were 
not given to scribbling. They contented 
themselves with closing on you, often 
without knowing why. To be a prison, 
and to have kept prisoners, was enough 
for them. 

The company had to spread itself out 
and take the form of the passage. They 


walked almost one by one, first the 
wapentake, next Gwynplaine, then the 
justice of the quorum, lastly the police- 
men, moving in a body and stopping up 
the passage behind Gwynplaine like a 
plug. The way grew narrower ; Gwyn- 
plaine now touched the wall with both 
elbows; the vault overhead, made of 
pebbles embedded in cement, had, at in- 
tervals, covings of granite that pro- 
jected so as nearly to block the path ; 
it was necessary to lower one’s head in 
order to proceed ; no running possible 
in this corridor ; a man escaping would 
be forced to go slowly ; the gut twisted 
about ; all entrails are winding, a pris- 
on’s as well as a. man’s. Here and 
there, now to right now to left, square 
cuttings in the wall gave glimpses, 
through heavy grates, of staircases, 
some rising, some sinking. They came 
to a closed door ; it opened ; they went 
through; it closed again. Then they 
found a second door which gave them 
entrance ; then a third, which similarly 
turned on its hinges. These doors 
opened and shut of themselves, as it 
were. No one could be seen. And, 
while the passage grevr narrower, the 
vaulted roof grew lower, so that it was 
necessary to walk with the head bowed. 
The wall distilled moisture ; drops of 
water fell from the roof ; the stones 
which paved the passage were as slimy 
as intestines. The pale, scattered 
gleams, which did duty for light, grew 
more and more opaque; the air was 
giving out. And, saddest of all, they 
kept going down. 

■ It required attention to perceive that 
they were going down. In the dark, a 
gentle slope is ominous. Nothing so 
terrible as obscurities, on which we 
come by imperceptible descents. 

To descend is the entry into the fear- 
ful unknown. 

How long did they walk thus? Gwyn- 
plaine could not have told. 

Minutes lengthen themselves out im- 


GROANING. 


223 


measurably, when passed through the 
rolling-mill of anguish. 

Suddenly they stopped. 

The darkness was dense. 

The passage was, somehow, wider. 

Gwynplaine heard close to him a 
noise, of which the Chinese gong alone 
could give an idea; something like a 
blow struck on the diaphragm of space. 

It was the wapentake, who had just 
struck his staff against a sheet of iron. 

This sheet was a door. 

Iilot a door which opens on hinges, 
but a door that is pulled up and let 
down. Almost like a portcullis. 

Something creaked harshly in a 
groove, and Gwynplaine had suddenly 
before his eyes a square patch of light. 

The iron had been drawn up into a 
cleft of the vault, much as the door of 
a mouse-trap is lifted. 

An opening presented itself. 

The light was not daylight ; it was a 
mere glimmer ; but to the fully dilated 
eyeballs of Gwynplaine, this sudden 
though pale illumination was at first 
like the shock of a flash of lightning. 

It was some time before he could see 
any thing. T o distinguish obj ects, when 
dazzled, is as difficult as in the dark. 

As by degrees his pupils adapted 
themselves to the light, as they had 
done to the darkness, he at length saw ; 
the light, which had at first appeared 
to him too vivid, grew softer and pallid 
to his eye ; he risked a look into the 
opening that yawned before him, and 
beheld a fearful sight. 

At his feet, some twenty high steps, 
narrow, dilapidated, nearly perpendic- 
ular, without a rail on either hand, 
forming a’ sort of stone crest, like a 
piece of wall bevelled into a staircase, 
entered and sank into a very deep cel- 
lar, reaching the bottom of it. 

This cellar was round, with a vaulted 
roof on cross-arches ; and these arches 
were inclined — by reason of the imper- 
fect level of the lintels— a displacement 


peculiar to all excavations upon which 
very heavy buildings have been piled. 

The sort of cutting which took the 
place of a door, and which the sheet of 
iron had disclosed, was made in the 
vault, so that from this height the eye 
plunged into the cellar as into a well. 

It was a huge cellar, and if it were 
the lower part of a well, the well must 
have been gigantic. The old phrase, 
“bottom of a den,” could not have been 
applied to this cellar, unless you im- 
agined a den of lions or tigers. 

The cellar was neither paved nor 
flagged. It had for floor the moist and 
cold earth found at such depths. 

In the middle of the cellar, four lov/ 
and shapeless columns supported a can- 
opy with heavy cross-arches, the four 
branches of which, joining inside the 
canopy, made something like the inner 
part of a mitre. This canopy, like the 
shrines under which sarcophagi were 
formerly kept, rose up to the vault and 
made in the cellar a species of central 
chamber, if the name of chamber can 
be given to a compartment open on 
all sides, having four pillars instead of 
four walls. 

From the keystone of the canopy 
hung a round copper lantern, barred 
like a prison window. This lantern 
cast around — on the pillars, the vaulted 
roofs, and the circular wall seen dimly 
behind the pillars — a wan light, check- 
ered with lines of shadow. 

It was this illumination which had 
dazzled Gwynplaine at first. Now it 
was nothing more to him than a ruddy 
glow scarcely distinct. 

No other light in this cellar. Neither 
window, door, nor air-hole. 

Between the four pillars, precisely 
under the lantern, in the spot where 
there was most light, a pale and fearful 
outline was laid flat on the earth. 

It was stretched on its back. You 
saw a head whose eyes were closed, a 
body whose trunk was hidden under an 


224 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


indistinct, shapeless mass of something, 
four limbs united to the trunk in the 
form of a St. Andrew’s cross, and drawn 
toward the four pillars by four chains 
fastened to the feet and hands ; these 
chains ended in iron rings at the foot 
of each column. This shape, fixed in 
the horrid attitude of a victim about to 
he quartered, was icy and livid as a 
corpse. It was a naked man. 

Gwynplaine, petrified, stood on the 
top of the staircase and looked. 

Suddenly he heard a gurgle. 

The corpse was alive. 

Close to this spectre, in one of the 
arches of the canopy, one on each side 
of a large arm-chair raised upon a 
broad flat stone, stood upright two men 
dressed in long black wrappers, and in 
the arm-chair was seated an old man 
covered with a red robe, pale, motion- 
less, ominous, a bouquet of roses in his 
hand. 

This bouquet of roses would have 
given information to a person less ig- 
norant than Gwynplaine. The right to 
sit in judgment, holding a nosegay, dis- 
tinguished a magistrate at the same 
time royal and municipal. The lord- 
mayor of London still sits thus. It was 
the duty of the first roses of the season 
to aid the judges in their duty. 

The old man seated in the arm-chair 
was the sheriflf of the county of Sur- 
rey. 

He had the rigid majesty of a Koman 
senator. 

The arm-chair was the only seat in 
the cellar. 

Alongside of it might he seen a table 
covered with hooks and papers, on 
which was placed the long white wand 
of the sheriff. 

The men standing on the sheriff’s 
right and left were two doctors, one of 
medicine, the other of laws, the latter 
distinguishable by the sergeant’s coif on 
his wig. Both wore the black gown ; 
one as judge, the other as physician. 


Men of these two classes wear mourn- 
ing for those whom they kill. 

Behind the sheriff, on the edge of 
the step made by the flat stone, was 
crouched — with a writing-desk near 
him on the flag, a pasteboard portfolio 
on his knees, and a sheet of parchment 
on the portfolio — a recorder’s clerk in 
a round wig, pen in hand, like a mail 
ready to write. 

This clerk was of the class called 
“ hag-keepers,” as shown by a hag lying 
before him at his feet. These articles, 
formerly employed in lawsuits, were 
called “justice-hags.” 

A man, entirely clothed in leather, 
leaned his hack against one of the pil- 
lars, crossing his arms. He was the ex- 
ecutioner’s servant. 

These men seemed fixed by enchant- 
ment in their gloomy position around 
the chained prisoner. Hot one of them 
stirred or spoke. 

A monstrous tranquillity reigned over 
aU the scene. 

What Gwynplaine saw there was a 
torture-cellar. 

These cellars abounded in England. 
The crypt of Beauchamp Tower was 
long used for this purpose ; so was the 
vault of the Lollards’ prison. Of this 
sort was the underground cell called 
“Lady Place Yaults,” which may still 
he seen in London. There is a fire- 
place in it, to heat irons, if necessary. 

All the prisons of King John’s time— 
and Southwark jail w^as one of these — 
had their torture-ceUar. 

What follows frequently happened in 
England then, and might literally, in a 
criminal case, he done there even now, 
for aU those laws still exist. England 
presents the singular spectacle of a bar- 
barous code living on good terms with 
liberty. W e must confess that the fam- 
ily arrangement works well. 

Still, a little distrust might not he out 
of place. Let a crisis come, and ven- 
geance may possibly awake. English 


GROANING. 


225 


legislation is a tame tigress. She shows 
her velvety paws; but her claws are 
there still. 

It is wise to cut the claws of the law. 

Law^ almost ignores right. On one 
hand penal enactments, on the other 
humanity. Philosophers protest; but 
much time will yet elapse before human 
justice shall have become one with real 
justice. 

Respect for tho law ; that is the Eng- 
lish motto. In England the laws are 
so much venerated, that they are never 
abolished. The escape from the conse- 
quences of this veneration is the not 
executing them. An old law fallen into 
disuse is like an old woman ; but it is 
not necessary to kiU either of the ven- 
erable ladies; you merely let them 
alone. They have the right to think 
themselves perpetually young and beau- 
tiful. They are allowed to dream that 
they still live. This politeness is called 
respect. 

The Norman practice is aged and 
wrinkled enough; that does not pre- 
vent more than one English judge from 
casting sheep’s eyes at it. Any atro- 
cious bit of antiquity is lovingly pre- 
served, if it be Norman. What more 
barbarous than the gibbet? In 1866, a 
man* was condemned to be quartered, 
the quarters to be placed at her Majes- 
ty’s disposal. 

But the torture has never existed in 
England. 

History says so. The assurance of 
history is charming. 

Matthew, of Westminster, notes that 
“the Saxon law, very clement and 
kind,” did not punish criminals with 
death, and he adds that it only “ cut off 
their noses, put out their eyes, and cas- 
trated them ! ” 

Gwynplaine, bewildered, at the top of 
the staircase, began to tremble in every 
limb. He experienced every kind of 
shudder. He tried to remember what 

* The Fenian Bnrke, May, 1866. 

15 


crime he could have committed. To the 
wapentake’s silence had succeeded the 
vision of punishment. A step forward, 
but a tragic one. He saw the gloomy 
legal puzzle, in which he felt himself 
trapped, growing darker and darker. 

The human form on the ground ut- 
tered a second gurgle. 

Gwynplaine felt his shoulder gently 
pushed. 

This push came from the wapentake. 

Gwynplaine understood that he must 
go down. 

He obeyed. 

He descended the staircase step by 
step. The steps were very shallow and 
eight or nine inches high. Moreover, 
there was no hand-rail. It was not 
possible to descend without care. Two 
steps behind Gwynplaine came the 
wapentake, holding ^the iron weapon 
erect ; and behind him, at the same dis- 
tance, came the justice of the quorum. 

Gwynplaine, while descending these 
stairs, felt his hopes strangely swal- 
lowed up. It was a sort of death, step 
by step. Each successive stair put out 
a light in his soul. Growing paler and 
paler, he reached the bottom of the 
staircase. 

The species of ghost chained on the 
ground to the four pillars continued to 
gurgle. 

A voice in the obscurity said : 

— Come forward. 

It was the sheriff who addressed 
Gwynplaine. 

Gwynplaine took a step forward. 

— Nearer, said the voice. 

Gwynplaine took another step. 

— Quite near, repeated the sheriff. 

The justice of the quorum murmured 
in Gwynplaine’s ear, so gravely that 
the whisper was solemn : 

— You are before the sheriff of the 
county of Surrey. 

Gwynplaine walked up to the tor-* 
tured man whom he saw stretched in 
the middle of the cellar. The wapen- 


226 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


take and the justice of the quorum re- 
mained where they were, and let him 
advance alone. 

When Gwynplaine, fairly arrived un- 
der the canopy, had a near view of the 
wretched object which he as yet had 
only seen from a distance, and which 
was a living man, his fear became ter- 
ror. 

The man bound on the earth was en- 
tirely naked, except that hideously de- 
cent rag which might be called the fig- 
leaf of torture, which was the Eoman 
succingulum^ and the Gothic cTiristipan- 
nus^ and of which our old Gaulish jar- 
gon made the word cripagne. Christ 
on the cross had only this scrap of cov- 
ering. 

The awful suflTerer, whom Gwynplaine 
regarded, seemed to be a man of from 
fifty to sixty. His chin was rough with 
the white stubble of a beard. His eyes 
were shut and his mouth was open. 
All his teeth could be seen. His thin, 
bony face was like a death’s head. His 
arms and legs, fastened by the chains to 
the four stone posts, made the figure of 
an X. On his chest and belly was an 
iron plate, and on this plate were 
placed in a heap five or six large stones. 
The gurgling sound which he uttered 
was sometimes a respiration, sometimes 
a groan. 

The sheriff, without letting go his 
bouquet of roses, took from the table, 
with the hand which he had free, his 
white wand, and raised it perpendicu- 
larly, saying ; 

— Obedience to her Majesty I 

Then he replaced the wand on the 
table.? 

After wliich, slowly as a death-knell, 
without a gesture, motionless as the 
sufferer, the sheriff raised his voice. 

He said : 

— You, prisoner, who are here 
bound in chains, listen for the last time* 
to the voice of justice. You have 
been taken from your cell and brought 


to this jail. Properly questioned in 
the legal forms, formaliis xerlis pressus, 
without regard to the summons made 
to you by reading, and which will be 
made again, inspired by a spirit of 
wicked and perverse obstinacy, you 
have enveloped yourself in silence, and 
refused to answer the judge, which 
is a detestable license, and constitutes, 
among the actions punishable with se- 
clusion, the crime and misdemeanor of 
overtness. 

The sergeant of the coif, standing at 
the sheriff’s right, interrupted him, 
saying in an indifferent tone that was 
inexpressibly mournful : 

— Overhernessa, Laws of Alfred and 
Godrun, Chapter Sixth. 

The sheriff resumed : 

— The law is revered by all, save 
the robbers who infest the woods 
where the hinds bring forth. 

Like one bell tolling after another, 
the sergeant repeated : 

— Qui faciunt 'vastum in foresta 
ubi damm solent fouininare. 

— He who refuses to answer the 
magistrate, continued the sheriff, is ob- 
noxious to every charge. He is con- 
sidered capable of every vice. 

The sergeant broke in again : 

— Prodigus^ denorator^ profums^ sa- 
lax^ ruffian'm^ ebriosus, luxuriosns, si- 
mulator, consumptoT patrimonii, Tielluo, 
et gluto. 

— All vices, said the sheriff, suppose 
all crimes. He who admits nothing 
confesses all. He who preserves si- 
lence, before the judge’s questions, is 
virtually a liar and a parricide. 

— Menda/x et parricida, said the 
sergeant. 

Then said the sheriff : 

— Prisoner, you are not allowed to 
exile yourself by silence. The counter- 
feit fugitive wounds the dignity of the 
law. He is like Diomed wounding a 
goddess. Silence before justice is one 
form of rebellion. Treason to justice is 


GROANING. 


227 


treason to the sovereign. Nothing can 
be more detestable or more rash. He 
who withdraws himself from examina- 
tion steals the truth. The law has pro- 
vided for him. In such cases, the Eng- 
lish have from all time enjoyed the 
right of fosse, fork, and chains. 

— Anglica Charta^ year 1088, said 
the sergeant. 

And he added with the same me- 
chanical gravity : 

— Fcrrum et fossum et furcas cum 
aliis libertatibus. 

The sheriff continued : 

— Therefore, prisoner, since you 
have not chosen to quit your silence, 
although of sound mind, and perfectly 
understanding what the judge asks you, 
since you are diabolically refractory, 
you have incurred an infernal punish- 
ment, and you have been, in the terms 
of the criminal statutes, put to the tor- 
ture called la peine forte et dure. 
This is what has been done to you. 
The law demands that I should declare 
it to you officially. You have been 
brought into this underground dungeon, 
you have been stripped of your gaiunents, 
you have been laid on your back upon 
the ground, your four limbs have been 
stretched and bound to four columns, 
as the law commands, a sheet of iron 
has been placed upon your belly, and 
as many stones laid on your body as 
you can bear. “ And more than he can 
bear,” says the law. 

— Plusque^ added the sergeant, in 
confirmation. 

The sheriff continued : 

— In this position and before pro- 
longing the question, there was made 
to you by me, sheriff of the county of 
Surrey, repeated summons to speak 
and answer, and you satanically perse- 
vered in silence, although in hold of 
fetters, chains, stocks, shackles, and 
irons. 

— AttacMamenta leg alia., said the 
sergeant. 


— On your hardened refusal, said the 
sheriff, it being proper that the obsti- 
nacy of the law should equal the obsti- 
nacy of the criminal, the question con- 
tinued as the edicts and texts order. 

— The first day, you had nothing 
either to eat or drink. 

— Hoe est superjejunare, said the ser- 
geant. 

There was a moment’s silence. The 
horrible hissing respiration of the man 
under the pile of stones was audible. 

The sergeant-at-law completed his 
interruption. 

— Adde augmentum alstinentim ci- 
loorum diminutione. Consuetudo Britan- 
nica, five hundred and fourth article. 

These two men, the sheriff and the 
sergeant, spoke alternately; nothing 
could be more gloomy than their im- 
movable monotony ; the mournful 
voice answered the ominous voice. It 
was like the priest and the deacon of 
torture celebrating the ferocious rites 
of the law. 

The sheriff recommenced : 

— The first day, you had nothing 
either to eat or drink. The second day, 
you had food, but no drink; three 
morsels of barley bread were put into 
your mouth. The third day, you had 
drink, and no food. There was poured 
into your mouth, at three times and in 
three glasses, a pint of water taken from 
the gutter of the prison drain. The 
fourth day has come. It is to-day. Now 
if you still refuse to answer, you will 
be left there till you die. Such is the 
will of justice. 

The serge^n' , alwuj a ready with his 
refrain, expressed his approval : 

— Mors rei homagium est lonce legi. 

— And while you feel yourself dying 
thus lamentably, continued the sheriff, 
no one will assist you, even though the 
blood should start from your throat, 
from your beard, and your armpits, and 
out of all the pores of your body from 
your mouth to your loins. 


228 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


— A throtebolla^ said the sergeant, et 
pube et subMrrcis et a grugno usque ad 
crupponem. 

The sheriff went on : 

— Attention, prisoner, for the rest 
concerns you. If you renounce your 
execrable silence, and confess, you will 
only he hung, and you will have a right 
to the meldefeoJi^yflAQh. is a sum of 
money. 

— Damnum conjitens^ said the ser- 
geant, habeat meldefeoh. Leges Inm^ 
chapter twenty. 

— Which sum, urged the sheriff, will 
he paid you in doitkins, suskins, and 
gallihalpens, the only case in which this 
coinage can he used, according to the 
terms of the statute of abolition, in the 
third year of Henry Y., and you will 
have the right and enjoyment of scrjv- 
tum ante mortem^ and then you will he 
hanged on the gallows. Such are the 
advantages of confession. Will you 
answer the judge ? 

The sheriff stopped and waited. The 
sufferer remained motionless. 

The sheriff recommenced : 

— Prisoner, silence is a refuge in 
which there is more danger than safety. 
Obstinacy is a damnable wickedness. 
He who is sUent before the judge is a 
felon against the crown. Do not per- 
sist in this unfilial disobedience. Think 
of her Majesty. Do not resist our gra- 
cious queen. When I speak to you, an- 
swer her. Be a loyal subject. 

There was a rattle in the prisoner’s 
throat. 

The sheriff recommenced: 

— Thus, after the first seventy-two 
hours of the question, we are here at 
the fourth day. Prisoner, this is the 
decisive day. It is for the fourth day 
that the law assigns the act of confron- 
tation. 

— Quanta die^ frontem ad frontem 
adduce^ murmured the sergeant. 

— The wisdom of the law, continued 
the sheriff, has chosen this supreme 


hour, in order to secure what our an- 
cestors called “judgment by mortal 
cold,” since it is the moment when men 
are believed on their yea and nay. 

The sergeant-at-law once more en- 
forced and supported the statement : 

— Judicium pro frodmortell^ quod 
homines credendi sint per suum ya et 
suum na. Charter of King Athelstan, 
volume first, page one hundred and 
seventy-three. 

They waited a moment; then the 
sheriff bent his stern face towai’d the 
sufferer : 

— Prisoner on the ground there . , . 

And he paused. 

— Prisoner, cried he, do you hear 
me ? 

The man did not stir. 

— In the name of the law, said the 
sheriff, open your eyes. 

The man’s eyelids remained shut. 

The sheriff turned to the physician 
standing on his left. 

— Doctor, make your diagnosis. 

— Probe^ da diagnosticum^ said the 
sergeant. 

The doctor descended from the flag- 
stone with magisterial stiffness, ap- 
proached the prisoner, stooped down, 
placed his ear close to the sufferer’s 
mouth, felt his pulse at the wrist, the 
armpit, and the thigh, and stood up 
again. 

— Well ? said the sheriff. 

— He still hears, said the doctor, 

— Does he see? asked the sheriff. 

The doctor replied : 

— He can see. 

At a sign of the sheriff, the justice of 
the quorum and the wapentake came 
forward. The wapentake placed him- 
self near the prisoner’s head ; the justice 
of the quorum stopped behind Gwyn- 
plaine. 

The physician retreated a step be- 
tween the pillars. Then the sheriff, 
raising his bouquet of roses as a priest 
elevates his sprinkling-brush, addressed 


GKOANING. 


tlie sufferer iu a loud and terrible 
voice : 

— Speak, wretch ! ^ The law entreats 
you before exterminating you. You 
wish to seem dumb — think on the tomb 
which is dumb ; you wish to seem deaf 
— think on the judgment which is deaf. 
Think on death, which is worse than 
yourself. Consider, you will be left in 
this cell. Listen, O fellow-being, for I 
am a man ! Listen, 0 brother, for I am 
a Christian ! Listen, O son, for I am 
old! Beware of me, for I have the 
control of your suffering, and I shall 
presently be terrible. The terror of 
the law makes the majesty of the judge. 
Think that I myself tremble at myself. 
My own power terrifies me. Drive me 
not to extremes. I feel myself full of 
the hallowed cruelty which punishes 
crime. Wherefore, O unfortunate man, 
have a healthy and honest fear of jus- 
tice, and obey me. The hour of con- 
frontation has come, and you must an- 
swer. Be not obstinate in your resist- 
ance. Take not the irrevocable step. 
Hear me, incipient corpse, and think 
that I have the right to finish you! 
Unless you choose to perish here 
through hours and days and weeks, in a 
long and fearful agony of hunger and 
filth, under the weight of those stones, 
alone in this dungeon, abandoned, for- 
gotten, blotted out, given to the rats 
and the weasels for food, eaten by the 
vermin of darkness, while men come 
and go, buy and sell, and carriages roll 
over your head ; unless it suits you to 
gasp without respite in this deep de- 
spair, gnashing your teeth, wailing, 
blaspheming, without a doctor to tend 
your sores, without a priest to adminis- 
ter the balm of divine compassion to 
your soul ; unless you wish to feel the 
fearful foam of death slowly gathering 
on your lips, I entreat and adjure you, 
hear me ! I call you to your own help ; 
have pity on yourself, do what you are 
asked, yield to justice, obey, turn your 


229 

head, open your eyes, and say if you 
recognize this man. 

The sufferer neither turned his head 
nor opened his eyes. 

The sheriff cast a glance at the justice 
of the quorum and the wapentake in 
turn. 

The justice pulled off Gwynplaine’s 
hat and cloak, took him by the shoulders 
and turned him, facing the light, tow- 
ard the chained man. Gwynplaine’s 
features, fully lit up, stood out in strange 
relief from the abundant shade. 

At the same time the wapentake 
stooped, took the prisoner’s head by 
the temples between his hands, turned 
his motionless head toward Gwynplaine, 
and with his thumbs and forefingers 
separated the closed lids. The wild 
eyes of the man appeared. 

The sufferer saw Gwynplaine. 

Then, lifting his head himself, and 
opening his eyes wide, he looked at 
him. 

He shook as much as a man can 
shake with a mountain on his breast, 
and cried out : 

— It is he ! yes, it is he ! 

And, terrible to hear, he broke out 
into a laugh. 

— It is he ! he repeated. 

Then he let his head fall back on the 
ground, and closed his eyes again. 

— Clerk, said the sheriff, write that 
down. 

Gwynplaine, though terrified, had 
nearly kept his countenance up to that 
moment. The cry of the prisoner. It is 
Tie! overwhelmed him. The words. 
Cleric^ write that down^ froze him. He 
seemed to make out that a criminal was 
dragging him into his own fate, though 
he, Gwynplaine, could not guess why, 
and that the unintelligible confession 
of this man was closing on him like the 
clasp of a fetter. He ima^ned this man 
and himself bound on the same pillory 
to two similar posts. Out of his depth 
in this terror he struggled wildly. With 


230 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


the thorough confusion of innocence, he 
commenced to stammer incoherent ex- 
pressions; trembling, terrified, bewil- 
dered, he threw out at random the first 
cries which occurred to him, and all 
those words of anguish which are like 
the missiles of a madman. 

— ’Tis not true. ’Tis not 1. I don’t 
know this man. He can’t know me, 
because I don’t know him. I have my 
representation of to-night waiting for 
me. ' What is wanted of me ? I demand 
my liberty. That is not all. Why have 
I been brought into this cellar ? There 
is no more law then ! Say at once that 
there is no more law. Judge, I repeat 
that it is not I. I am innocent of all 
that can be said about me. I know it 
well, I do. I want to go. This is not 
right. There is nothing between that 
man and me. You can inquire. My life 
is not a hidden matter. They came to 
seize me like a thief. Why did they 
come so ? That man there, do I know 
who he is ? I am a travelling clown 
who makes fun at fairs and markets. 
I am The Man Who Laughs. Plenty of 
people have come to see me. We are in 
Tarrinzeau-Pield. I have been prac- 
tising my business honestly these fif- 
teen years. I am twenty-five years 
old. I live at the Tadcaster Inn. My 
name is Gwynplaine. Judge, do me 
the favor to make them dismiss me. It 
is not right to take advantage of the 
weakness of poor wretches. Have pity 
on a man who has done nothing, and 
who is without protection and without 
defence. You have before you a poor 
mountebank. 

— I have before me, said the sheriff. 
Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Baron Clan- 
charlie and Hunkerville, Marquis of Cor- 
leone in Sicily, peer of England. 

Kising, and offering his chair to 
Gwynplaine, the sheriff added : 

— My lord, will your lordship deign 
to be seated ? 


BOOK V. 

THE SEA AND FATE ABE 8T1BBED 
BY THE SAME BLAST. 

I. 

SOLIDITY OF FEAGnJE THINGS. 

Destiny sometimes holds out to us a 
glass of madness to drink. A hand 
emerges from the cloud, and offers us 
the sombre cup, wherein is drunkenness 
unknown. 

Gwynplaine did not comprehend it. 

He looked behind to see who was ad- 
dressed. 

Too sharp a sound is none the more 
distinguishable by the ear ; emotion, too 
sharp, is none the more distinguishable 
by the intelligence. There is a limit for 
understanding, as for hearing. 

The wapentake and the justice of the 
quorum approached Gwynplaine, and 
took each an arm. He felt that they 
had seated him in the arm-chair, whence 
the sheriff had risen. 

He let them do it, without explaining 
to himself how this could be. 

When Gwynplaine was seated, the 
justice of the quorum and the wapen- 
take fell back some steps, and held 
themselves upright and motionless in 
the rear of the arm-chair. 

Then the sheriff placed his nosegay 
of roses on the flag-stone, put on a pair 
of spectacles presented to him by the 
clerk, drew out, from under the bundles 
of papers heaped upon the table, a sheet 
of parchment, spotted, turned yellow, 
turned green, gnawed, and frayed in 
places, that seemed to have been folded 
up in extremely narrow folds, and one 
side of which was covered with writing. 
Then, standing up under the light of 
the lantern, and bringing the document 
up to his eyes, he read as follows : 

“ In the name of the Father, of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 

“ This day, twenty-ninth of January, 
sixteen hundred and ninety of our Lord. 


SOLIDITY OF FEAGILE THINGS. 


“ Has been wickedly abandoned, on 
the desert coast of Portland, with the 
design of letting him perish, of hunger, 
of cold, and of solitude, a child aged 
ten years. 

“ This child was sold at the age of two 
years, by order of his most gracious 
Majesty King James the Second. 

“ This child is Lord Fermain Clan- 
charlie, only legitimate son of Lord 
Linnaeus Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie 
and Hunkerville, Marquis of Oorleone 
in Italy, peer of the kingdom of Eng- 
land, defunct, and of Ann Bradshaw, 
his wife, defunct, 

“ This child is heir of the possessions 
and titles of his father. That is why he 
was sold, mutilated, disfigured, and put 
out of the way, by the wiU of his most 
gracious Majesty. 

“ This child has been brought up and 
trained to be a mountebank at markets 
and fairs. 

“He was sold, at the age of two 
years, after the death of the lord his 
father ; and ten pounds sterling were 
given to the king for the purchase of 
this child, as well as for divers conces- 
sions, tolerances, and immunities. 

“ Lord Fermain Clancharlie, aged 
two years, was bought by me the un- 
dersigned who write these lines, and 
was mutilated and disfigured by a Flem- 
ing of Flanders named Hardquanonne, 
who alone is in possession of the secrets 
and processes of Doctor Conquest. 

“ The child was intended by us to be 
a laughing mask. Masca ridens. 

“With this design, Hardquanonne 
practised on him the operation, Bucca 
Jissa usque ad aures, which stamps an 
eternal laugh upon the face. 

“The child, by means known to 
Hardquanonne only, having been put 
to sleep and rendered insensible during 
the work, does not know that he under- 
went this operation. 

“ He does not know that he is Lord 
Clancharlie. 


231 

“ He answers to the name of Gwyn- 
plaine. 

“ This comes of his tender age and 
imperfect memory when he was sold 
and bought, being scarcely two years 
old. 

“Hardquanonne is the only person 
who knows how to perform the opera- 
tion Bucca jissa ; and this chUd is the 
only living person on whom it has been 
performed. 

“ This operation is unique and singu- 
lar in this respect, that, even after many 
years, the child — were he an old man 
in place of being a child, and had his 
black hair become white hair — ^would 
be immediately recognized by Hardqua- 
nonne. 

“ At the hour when we write this, 
Hardquanonne, who knows pertinently 
all these facts and took part in them as 
the principal actor, is held in the pris- 
ons of his highness the Prince of Or- 
ange, vulgarly called King William HI. 
Hardquanonne has been apprehended 
and seized, as being one of the so-called 
Comprachicos or Cheylas. He is shut 
up in the strong keep at Chatham. 

“It was in Switzerland, near the 
Lake of Geneva, between Lausanne and 
Vevey, in the very house where his 
father and mother had died, that the 
child, in conformity with the king’s 
commands, was sold and delivered to 
us by the last servant of the deceased 
Lord Linnaeus, which servant died soon 
after his masters ; so that this delicate 
and secret affair is at these presents 
known to no person here below, except 
to Hardquanonne, who is in a dungeon 
at Chatham, and to us who are about to 
die. 

“We, the undersigned, have brought 
up, and kept for eight years, the little 
lord bought by us from the king, so as 
to make use of him in our business. 

“ On this day, flying from England, 
to avoid the hard fate of Hardquanonne, 
we have, through timidity and fear, on 


232 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


account of the prohibitions and penal 
fulminations enacted in Parliament, 
abandoned at nightfall, on the Portland 
coast, the said child Gwynplaine, who 
is Lord Fermain Clancharlie. 

“Now, we have sworn secrecy to the 
king, but not to God. 

“ This night, at sea^ assailed by a se- 
vere tempest, according to the will of 
Providence, in absolute despair and dis- 
tress, kneeling before Him who can save 
our lives, and may perhaps be willing 
to save our souls, having nothing more 
to expect from men and every thing to 
fear from God, having, for anchor and 
resource, repentance of our evil deeds, 
resigned to die, and content if justice on 
higli be satisfied, humble and penitent 
and smiting our breasts, we make this 
declaration and confide it and throw it 
into the furious sea, so that the sea may 
use it for advantage in obedience to 
God. And may the Most Holy Virgin 
be our help ! So be it ! And we have 
signed.” 

The sheriff, interrupting, said : 

— Here are the signatures, all in dif- 
ferent handwriting. 

And he went on to read : 

— “ Doctor Gemardus Geestemunde. 
— Asuncion. — A cross, and by the side of 
it: Barbara Fermoy, of Tyrryf Island, 
in the Hebrides. — Gaizdorra, chief. — 
Giangirate. — Jacques Quatourze, called 
the Narbonnese. — Luc. Pierre Capga- 
roupe, from the galleys at Mahon.” 

The sheriff, pausing again, said : 

— Note, written in the same hand as 
the text, and as the first signed name. 

And he read : 

— “Of the three men of the crew, 
the master having been washed away 
by a wave, only two remain. And they 
have signed. — Galdeazurs. — Ave-Maria, 
thief.” 

The sheriff, commingling the text and. 
the interruptions, continued : 

— At foot of the sheet is written : 

— “ At sea, on board the Matutina, 


Biscayan ork, of the Gulf of Pasa- 
ges.” 

— This sheet, added the sheriff, is a 
chancery-oflice parchment, bearing the 
water-mark of King James the Second. 
On the margin of the declaration, and 
in the same handwriting, there is this 
note : 

— “ The present declaration is writ- 
ten by us on the back of the leaf of the 
royal order that was handed to us, as 
our license for buying the child. Let 
the leaf be turned over and the order 
will be seen.” 

The sheriff turned over the parch- 
ment, and raised it up in his right hand, 
exposing it to the light. A white page 
was visible — ^if the term “white page” 
can be applied to such amass of mould- 
iness — and in the middle of the page 
three written words: two Latin words, 
jmsu regis, and one signature : Jeffreys. 

— Jussuregis. Jeffreys^ said the sher- 
iff, changing his voice from grave to 
loud. 

A man on whose head a tile from the 
palace of dreams has fallen — such was 
Gwynplaine. 

He began to speak as one speaks in a 
state of unconsciousness. 

— Gernardus ; yes, the doctor. An 
old man, and sad. I was afraid of him. 
Gaizdorra, captal., that’s to say the 
chief. There were women, Asuncion, 
and another one. And then the Pro- 
ven^^al. That was Capgaroupe. He 
drank from a flat bottle ; and there was 
a name written on it in red. 

— Here it is, said the sheriff. 

And he placed an object upon the 
table, that the clerk had drawn out from 
an official bag. 

It was a gourd, with handles, and 
covered with wicker. The bottle had 
evidently passed through adventures. 
It must have made a sojourn in the 
water. Shell-fish and sea-weed were 
sticking to it. It was incrusted and 
embossed with all the mildews of the 


SOLIDITY OF FRAGILE THINGS. 


233 


ocean. The neck had a circlet of pitch, 
indicating that it had been hermetically 
sealed. It was unsealed and open. At 
the same time, a sort of stopper, of a 
rope’s-end pitched, which had been the 
cork, was replaced in the mouth. 

— It was in this bottle, said the 
sheriff, that the declaration that has just 
been read was enclosed by those per- 
sons who were about to die. The mes- 
sage addressed to justice has been faith- 
fully remitted to it by the sea. 

The sheriff added something to the 
majesty of his intonation, and con- 
tinued : 

— Just as Harrow Hill excels in corn, 
and supplies the fine wheat flour from 
which the bread is baked for the royal 
table, so does the sea render to England 
all the services that it possibly can; 
and when a lord is lost, it finds him 
and brings him back. 

Then he resumed : 

— There is, in fact, a name inscribed 
in red upon this gourd. 

And raising his voice, he turned tow- 
ard the motionless sufferer : 

— Your name, yours, malefactor, 
here present. For such are the mys- 
terious ways by which the truth reaches 
the surface, after being engulfed in the 
whirlpool of human actions. 

The sheriff took the gourd, and turned 
toward the light one of the sides 
of the waif that had been rubbed 
clean, probably for the ends of justice. 
There was seen, winding through the 
wicker-work interlacings, a narrow 
strip of red cane, become black in spots 
by the action of water and of time. 
The cane, notwithstanding some frac- 
tures, traced distinctly in the wicker- 
work these twelve letters: Hardqua- 
nonne. 

— Hardquanonne 1 When by us, 
sheriff, this gourd whereon is your 
name, was, for the first time, shown, 
exhibited, and presented to you, you rec- 
ognized it at once and in good grace as 


having belonged to you. Then, having 
heard read to you, in its tenor, the parch- 
ment that was folded up and enclosed 
therein, you were not willing to say fur- 
ther, and refused to reply, in the hope 
without doubt that the lost child would 
not be found, and that you yourself 
would escape punishment. In conse- 
quence of that refusal you were subj ected 
to peine forte et dure^ and a second 
reading was made to you of the aforesaid 
parchment, whereto were consigned the 
declaration and confession of your ac- 
complices. Without avail. This day, 
which is the fourth day, and the day 
legally appointed for confrontation, 
having been brought into the presence 
of him who was abandoned at Portland, 
on the twenty-ninth of January, sixteen 
hundred and ninety, the diabolical hope 
has faded away in you, and you have 
broken silence and recognized your 
victim. 

The sufferer opened his eyes, raised 
up his head, and essayed to speak in a 
voice wherein was the strange sonorous- 
ness of agony, with an inexpressible 
calmness qualifying the throat-rattle, 
and pronouncing, tragically, under that 
mass of stones, the words, for each one 
of which he had to lift up the sort of se- 
pulchral lid that covered him. 

— I swore secrecy; and I have kept 
it to the utmost of my power. The 
men of gloom are the faithful men; 
and there is honor in hell. To-day, 
silence has become useless. So be it. 
That is why I speak. Yes, then; it is 
he. We did it jointly, we two, the 
king and I ; the king for his good pleas- 
ure — I for my art. 

And, looking at Gwynplaine, he 
added : 

— How, laugh forever ! 

And he himself broke out into a 
laugh. 

This second laugh, more savage still 
than the former one, might have been 
taken for a sob. 


234 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


The laugh ceased, and the man laid 
himself down again. His eyelids were 
reclosed. 

The sheriff, who had given up the 
word to the tortured man, went on : 

— On all which action is taken. 

He gave the clerk time to write ; then 
he said : 

— Hardquanonne, by the terms of the 
law, after confrontation carried out, after 
the third reading of the declaration of 
your accomplices, furthermore confirmed 
by your own recognition and confession, 
after your repeated avowal, you are to 
be relieved from these shackles and 
handed over to her Majesty’s good 
pleasure, in order that yon may be hung 
as a plagiary. 

— Plagiary, chimed in the sergeant- 
at-law; that is to say, buyer and seller 
of children. Visigoth law, book seven, 
chapter three, paragraph Usurpmerit ; 
and Salic law, chapter forty-one, para- 
graph two; and Prison law, chapter 
twenty-one, Be Plagio, And Alexan- 
der Nequam says: 

Qui pueros vendis^ plagiarim est tibi 
nomen. * 

The sheriff put the parchment on the 
table, took off his spectacles, resumed 
his nosegay, and said : 

— End of the peine forte et dure. 
Hardquanonne, thank her Majesty! 

By a sign, the justice of the quorum 
set in movement the man clad in leather. 

This fellow, who was a valet of the 
executioner — “groom of the gibbet,” 
say the old titles^stepped to the suf- 
ferer, took off one by one the stones 
that were on his stomach, lifted off the 
iron plate, and thus brought to sight 
the ribs of the poor wretch thrown out 
of shape, and then unfastened from 
wrist and ancle the four iron shackles 
by which he was secured to the pillars. 

The victim, relieved of the stones 
and released from the chains, remained 

* Thou who BcUest children, thy name is 
plagiary. 


flat upon the ground, his eyes closed, 
his arms and legs apart, like one cruci- 
fied and unnailed. 

— Hardquanonne, said the sheriff, 
stand up ! 

The sufferer did not budge. 

The groom of the gibbet took one of 
his hands, and then let it go ; the hand 
fell down again. The other hand, on 
being lifted up, fell down again in like 
manner. The executioner’s valet then 
laid hold of one foot, then of the other ; 
the heels flopped down upon the ground. 
The fingers remained inert, the toes 
motionless. The naked ffeet of a body 
lying thus have almost the effect of 
bristling up. 

The doctor came up, drew from a 
pocket in his robe a small steel mirror, 
and held it before Hardquanonne’s 
gaping mouth; then with his fingers he 
opened his eyelids. They did not close 
themselves again. The glassy eyeballs 
remained fixed. 

The doctor resumed his standing pos- 
ture, and said : 

— He is dead. 

And he added : 

— He laughed ; that killed him. 

— That’s of small consequence, said 
the sheriff. After the confession, living 
or dying is a mere formality. 

Then, indicating Hardquanonne by a 
wave of his nosegay of roses, the sheriff 
flung this order to the wapentake : 

— Carcass to be removed hence to- 
night. 

The wapentake expressed obedience 
by a nodding of the head ; and the 
sheriff added : 

— The prison burial-ground is oppo- 
site. 

The wapentake made a fresh sign of 
assent. 

The clerk was writing. 

The sheriff, having the nosegay in his 
left hand, took his white wand in the 
other, placed himself immediately in 
front of Gwynplaine still seated, made 


SOLIDITY OF FRAGILE THINGS. 


235 


him a low bow, and then — another sol- 
emn attitude — threw his head back, 
and, looking Gwynplaine in the face, 
said to him : 

— To you who are here present, we, 
Philip Denzil Parsons, knight, sheriff 
of the county of Surrey, assisted by 
Aubrey Docminique, Esquire, our clerk 
and registrar, and by our ordinary offi- 
cers, duly warranted by special and 
direct order of her Majesty, in virtue 
of our commission, and of the rights and 
duties of our charge, and by authority 
of the Lord-Chancellor of England — 
official report being made and action 
taken, in view of the documents com- 
municated by the Admiralty, after the 
verification of attestations and signa- 
tures, after declarations read and heard, 
after confrontation had, all the legal 
statements and informations being com- 
pleted, exhausted, and brought to good 
and just conclusion — do signify and 
declare to you, so that the right may 
come of it, that you are Fermain Clan- 
charlie, Baron ClancharlieandHunker- 
ville. Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, and 
peer of England ! And may God have 
your lordship in good keeping I 

And he bowed down. 

The sergeant-at-law, the doctor, the 
justice of the quorum, the wapentake, 
the clerk, all the assistants, except the 
executioner, repeated this salutation 
more profoundly still, and inclined 
themselves to the earth before Gwyn- 
plaine. 

— Ho, some one, cried Gwynplaine, 
wake me ! 

And he stood up, deadly pale. 

— I have effectually wakened you, 
said a voice that had not yet been heard. 

A man stepped out from behind one 
of the pillars. As no one had pene- 
trated into the vault, since the sheet of 
iron had given passage on arrival of the 
police procession, it was clear that this 
man was thus lying hid, previous to 
Gwynplaine’s entrance ; that he had a 


regular part to play as observer ; and 
that it was his mission and duty to hold 
to it. This man was thickset and portly, 
in a court lyig and travelling-cloak, 
rather old than young, and very neat. 

He saluted Gwynplaine with ease and 
respect, with the elegance of a gen- 
tleman in service, and without any ma- 
gisterial awkwardness. 

— Yes, said he, I have wakened you. 
You have been asleep for twenty-five 
years. You have had a dream, and you 
must emerge from it. You believe your- 
self Gwynplaine ; you are Clancharlie. 
You believe yourself of the people ; 
you are of the nobility. You believe 
yourself of the lowest rank; you are 
of the uppermost. You believe your- 
self an actor ; you are a senator. You 
believe yourself poor; you are rich. 
You think yourself small ; you are great. 
Wake up, my lord ! 

Gwynplaine, in a voice very low and 
that bespoke a certain terror, mur- 
mured : 

— What does all this mean ? 

— It means, my lord, replied the fat 
man, that I am named Barkilphedro ; 
that I am an officer of the Admiralty ; 
that this waif, Hardquanonne’s gourd, 
was found on the sea-shore ; that it was 
brought to me to be unsealed by me, as 
is the business and prerogative of my 
office ; that I opened it, in presence of 
two sworn jurymen of the office Jet- 
sam, both of whom are members of 
Parliament, William Blathwaith for the 
city of Bath, and Thomas Jervoise for 
Southampton; that the two jurymen 
described and certified the contents of 
the gourd, and signed the official report 
of the opening, conjointly with myself; 
that I laid my report before her Majes- 
ty ; that by the queen’s order all neces- 
sary legal formalities have been ful- 
filled, with the discretion that so deli- 
cate a matter requires, and that the 
last, the confrontation, has just taken 
place. This means that you have a 


236 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


million for income. This means that 
you are a lord of the United Kingdom 
of Great Britain ; legislator and judge, 
judge supreme and sovereign legislator ; 
clothed in purple and ermine; the 
equal of princes and the like of em- 
perors ; that you have upon your head 
the peer’s coronet; and that you are 
about to espouse a duchess, daughter of 
a king. 

' Beneath this transfiguration, coming 
down upon him like a thunderbolt, 
Gwynplaine fainted away, 

II. 

THE WANDEEEB DOES NOT ALWAYS LOSE 
ms WAY. 

All this came of a soldier, who had 
found a bottle by the sea-shore. 

Every event is one of a series. 

One day, one of the four gunners who 
composed the garrison of Oalshot Cas- 
tle had picked up in the sand at low 
water a round, wicker-covered bottle, 
thrown there by the fiood-tide. This 
bottle was quite mouldy, and corked 
with a tarred cork. The soldier had 
carried this waif to the colonel in com- 
mand of the castle, and the colonel had 
dispatched it to the Admiral of Eng- 
land. Now the admiral meant the Ad- 
miralty, and the Admiralty, in a case of 
waif, meant Barkilphedro. So Barkil- 
phedro had opened and uncorked the 
bottle, and carried it to the queen. 
The queen had immediately taken coun- 
sel. Two important counsellors had 
been summoned and consulted; the 
lord-chancellor, who is by law “ guar- 
dian of the King of England’s con- 
science,” and the lord-marshal, who is 
“ judge of arms and of the descent of 
the nobility.” Thomas Howard, Duke 
of Norfolk, a Catholic peer, who was 
hereditary Grand-Marshal of England, 
had declared by his deputy Earl-Mar- 


shal, Henry Howard, Earl of Bindon, 
that he would be of the opinion of the 
lord-chancellor. The lord-chancellor 
was William Cowper. This chancellor 
must not be confounded with his name- 
sake and contemporary William Cow- 
per, the anatomist, commentator on 
Bidloo, who published in England his 
“ Treatise on the Muscles,” almost at the 
same time that Stephen Abeille was 
publishing in France his “ History of the 
Bones :” a surgeon and a lord are two 
different things. Lord William Cowper 
was celebrated for having uttered this 
sentence, in the matter of Talbot Tel- 
verton, Viscount Longueville : “ As re- 
gards the constitution of England, the 
restoration of a peer is more important 
than the restoration of a king.” The 
bottle found at Calshot had aroused his 
attention to the highest pitch. The au- 
thor of a maxim loves opportunities of 
applying it. It was a case of restora- 
tion of a peer. Gwynplaine, having 
his sign hung out, was easy to find. 
Hardquanonne also. He was not dead. 
A prison rots a man, but preserves him, 
if keeping is preserving. People put 
into bastiles were seldom moved. A 
cell was scarcely changed oftener than 
a cofinin is. Hardquanonne was still in 
the dungeon of Chatham. It was only 
necessary to take hold of him. He was 
transferred from Chatham to London. 
At the same time researches were made 
in Switzerland. The correctness of the 
facts was ascertained. In the local 
registers of Yevay and Lausanne were 
found recorded the marriage of Lord 
Linn 83 us in exile, the birth of his child, 
the deaths of the father and mother ; 
there was suflicient material for, dupli- 
cate dispatches, duly attested. All 
this was done with the strictest secrecy, 
with what was then called royal promp- 
titude^ and with that “ silence of a mole ” 
recommended and practised by Bacon, 
and afterward established by Blackstone 
as a law for chancery and state busi- 


THE WANDERER DOES NOT ALWAYS LOSE HIS WAY. 


237 


ness, and for affairs tLat are styled sen- 
atorial. 

The jtmu regis and the signature 
Jeffrey s'warQ verified. To any one who 
! has studied pathologically the cases of 
caprice called “good pleasure,” this 
jtissu regii is quite simple. Why did 
J ames II., who apparently should have 
concealed such actions, leave written 
traces of them, even at the risk of com- 
promising their success? Effrontery. 
Lofty indifference. What! you think 
it is only women who are shameless I 
I A “reason of state” is shameless too. 

Et se cupit ante videri. Commit a crime 
j and make a scutcheon of it ; that is the 
j whole story. The king tattooes himself, 
like the convict. It is their interest to 
evade the police and the historian ; they 
would be very sorry to do so ; they in- 
sist on being known and recognized. 
See my arm, note this device, a temple 
of love and a heart in flames, pierced by 
an arrow. I am Lacenaire. Jussu regis. 
I am James II. One does a bad deed 
and puts one’s mark on it. To add im- 
prudence to crime, to inform against 
himself, to make his misdeed perma- 
nent, is the insolent bravado of the 
malefactor. Christina seizes Monaldes- 
cM, has him shrived and murdered, 
and says, I am Queen of Sweden under 
the roof of the King of France. There is 
the tyrant who hides himself like Ti- 
berius, and the tyrant who displays 
himself like Philip II. One has more 
of the scorpion, the other more of the 
leopard. James II. was of the latter 
variety. He had, as is well known, an 
open and gay countenance, differing in 
that point from Philip II. Philip was 
sad, James was jovial. One may be 
jovial, and ferocious all the same. 
James II. was the silly tiger. Like 
Philip II., his crimes made him calm. 
He was monster by the grace of God. 
So he had nothing to dissemble or ex- 
tenuate, and his murders were by right 
divine. He also would gladly have left 


behind him his archives of Simancas, 
with all his crimes numbered, dated, 
classed, ticketed, and arranged, like the 
poisons in a druggist’s workshop. 

To put a signature to one’s crimes is 
royal. 

Every deed done is a draft drawn on 
the great unknown capitalist ; this one 
had just fallen due with the sinister 
indorsement jussu regis. Queen Anne, 
who was no woman in one respect, 
since she excelled in keeping a secret, 
had demanded from the lord-chancellor 
a confidential report on this grave af- 
fair, of the kind called “reports for the 
royal ear.” Reports of this sort have 
always been customary in monarchies. 
At Vienna there was the counsellor of 
the ear., an aulic personage. It was an 
ancient Carlovingian, the auricularius 
of the old palatine charters. He who 
whispers to the emperor. 

TVilliam, Baron Cowper, Chancellor 
of England, in whom the queen believed, 
because he was near-sighted like herself 
and more so, had drawn up a memoir,^ 
commencing thus: “Two birds were 
at the orders of Solomon, a hoopoo, 
hudlud., who spoke all tongues, and an 
eagle, simourgouTca^ who covered with 
the shadow of his wings a caravan of 
twenty thousand men. Similarly, un- 
der another form. Providence,” etc., etc. 
The lord-chancellor established the fact 
of an heir to a peerage carried off and 
mutilated, and found afterward. He 
did not at aU blame James II., who after 
all was the queen’s father. He even ad- 
duced reasons on his behalf. First, there 
are the old monarchic maxims, E senio- 
ratu eripimus. Inroturagio cadat. Sec- 
ondly, the royal right of mutilation ex- 
ists. Chamberlayne has established this.* 
Corpora et tona nostrorum subjectorum 
nostra sunt., said James I., of glorious 
and learned memory. Dukes of royal 

♦ The life and limbs of subjects are at the 
king’s disposal.— -Chamberlayne, 2d part, chapter 
iv., p. 76. 


238 


' BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


blood have bad tbeir eyes put out for 
the good of tbe kingdom. Sundry 
princes, too near tbe tbrone, bave been 
conveniently suffocated between two 
mattresses, wbicb passed for apoplexy. 
Now suffocation is more than mutila- 
tion. Tbe King of Tunis tore out tbe 
eyes of bis father, Muley-Assem, and 
bis ambassadors were no less received 
by tbe emperor. Then tbe king can 
order a limb to be lopped off, as be can 
a dignity, etc. This is legal, etc. But 
one legality does not destroy another. If 
the drowned man comes to tbe surface 
again and is not dead, it is God who re- 
vises tbe king’s action. If tbe heir is 
found again, let tbe crown be restored 
to him ; thus was it done for Lord Alla, 
King of Northumbria, who also bad been 
a buffoon. Thus should it be done for 
Gwynplaine, who also is king, that is 
lord. Tbe baseness of tbe occupation, 
suffered and undergone through cir- 
cumstances beyond bis control, does not 
tarnish tbe scutcheon; witness King 
Abdolonymus who was a gardener, wit- 
ness Saint Joseph who was a carpenter, 
witness tbe god Apollo himself, who 
W'as a shepherd. In fine, tbe learned 
chancellor concluded that Fermain, 
Lord Olancharlie, wrongly called Gwyn- 
plaine, should be reinstated in all bis 
possessions and dignities, “ on the sole 
condition that be be confronted with tbe 
criminal Hardquanonne, and recognized 
by him.” And on this point the chancel- 
lor, constitutional guardian of the royal 
conscience, guaranteed that conscience. 

The lord-chancellor suggested in a 
postscript that, in case Hardquanonne 
should refuse to answer, he ought to be 
submitted to the ‘peine forte et dure^ in 
which case, in order to hit the moment 
called that of frodunortell and required 
by the charter of King Athelstan, the 
confrontation should take place on the 
fourth day, which, to be sure, involves 
this slight inconvenience, that, if the 
sufferer dies the second or third day. 


the confrontation becomes difficult; 
but the law must be executed. The 
inconvenience of the law makes part 
of the law. 

Besides, the recognition of Gwyn- 
plaine by Hardquanonne was not at all 
doubtful in the lord-chancellor’s mind. 

The restoration of Lord Fermain Clan- 
charlie was moreover a very simple case, 
the heir being legitimate and direct. F or 
doubtful filiations, or peerages in abey- 
ance, claimed by collaterals, the House 
of Lords must be consulted. Thus, 
without going farther back, it was so 
consulted in 1782 for the barony of 
Sidney, claimed by Elizabeth Perry ; in 
1798 for the barony of Beaumont, 
claimed by Thomas Stapleton ; in 1803 
for the barony of Chandos, claimed by 
the Reverend Tynewell Brydges ; in 
1813 for the earldom of Banbury, 
claimed by Lieutenant-General Knollys, 
etc. ; but here nothing of the sort. No 
contestation ; an evident legitimacy ; a 
clear and certain right ; there was no 
ground for informing the House ; and 
the queen, assisted by the lord-chan- 
cellor, was sufficient to recognize and 
admit the new peer. 

Barkilphedro conducted it all. 

Thanks to him, the business was so 
well kept in the dark, the secret was so 
hermetically sealed up, that neither 
Josiane nor LordDavidhad a suspicion 
of the prodigious mine which he was dig- 
ging under them. The lofty Josiane had 
a position which rendered her easy to 
shut off. She isolated herself. As to 
Lord David, he was sent to sea on the 
coast of Flanders. He was going to 
lose his peerage, without suspecting it. 
Here let us note a circumstance. It 
happened that at ten leagues’ distance 
from the anchorage of the naval station 
commanded by Lord David, a cap- 
tain named Halyburton broke through 
the French fleet. Earl Pembroke, presi- 
dent of the council, placed this Captain 
Halyburton’s name on a promotion list 


S 


THE WANDEEEE DOES NOT ALWAYS LOSE HIS WAY. 


239 


for rear-admiral. Anne erased Haly- 
burton and put Lord David Dirry-Moir 
in bis place, so that Lord David, when 
he should learn that he was no longer 
peer, might have at least the consola- 
tion of being rear-admiral. 

Anne felt contented. A hideous 
husband for her sister, a handsome 
promotion for Lord David. Malice and 
bounty. 

Her Majesty was going to make 
some sport for herself. Besides, she 
said to herself that she was correcting 
an abuse of power on the part of her 
august father, restoring one of its 
I members to the peerage, acting like a 
I great queen, protecting innocence ac- 
cording to the will of God, that Provi- 
dence in its holy and impenetrable 
ways, etc. It is very pleasant to per- 
form a just act, which is at the same 
time disagreeable to some one whom 
we do not like. 

For the r'est, it had sufficed for the 
queen to know that her sister’s destined 
husband was deformed. In what fash- 
ion was Gwynplaine deformed? what 
sort of' ugliness was this? Barkilphe- 
dro had not thought it necessary to in- 
form the queen, and Anne had not con- 
descended to make inquiry. Profound 
royal disdain I Besides, what did it 
matter? The House of Lords could 
not but be grateful. The lord-chancel- 
lor, the oracle, had spoken. The res- 
toration of a peer is the restoration of 
the whole peerage. Royalty, on this 
occasion, showed itself the good and 
respectful guardian of the privileges of 
the peerage. Whatever the new lord’s 
. face might be, a face is no valid objec- 
tion against a right. Anne said all this, 
more or less, to herself, and went tran- 
quilly to her aim — the -great aim fem- 
' inine'and royal — to please herself, 
i The queen was then at Windsor, which 

! fact placed a certain distance between 
I the court intrigues and the public, 
i Only the persons absolutely neces- 


sary were in the secret of what was to 
take place. As for Barkilphedro, he 
was joyful, which added a gloomy ex- 
pression to his face. Joy can be the 
ugliest thing in the world. 

He had the pleasure of being the 
first to taste Hardquanonne’s bottle. 
He appeared not much surprised, as- 
tonishment being the mark of a small 
intellect. Moreover, was this not 
fairly the due of one who had so long 
been watching at the gate of chance ? 
Since he watched, something must 
come. 

This nil mira/ri was part of his 
self-control. Within himself, we may 
say, he was astounded. Any one who 
could have stripped off the mask which 
he wore over his conscience, even be- 
fore God, would have found this. Pre- 
cisely at that moment, Barkilphedro 
was beginning to be convinced that it 
would be impossible for him, intimate 
and base enemy as he was, to make a 
flaw in the lofty existence of Duchess 
Josiane. Hence a frenzied attack of 
latent animosity. He had reached 
that paroxysm, which is called dis- 
couragement. All the more furious, be- 
cause he despaired. To gnaw our bri- 
dle, is a tragic and true expression I A 
miscreant gnawing at his impotence. 
Barkilphedro was perhaps on the 
point of renouncing, not his ill-will 
toward Josiane, but his attempts to in- 
jure her ; not his anger, but his bite. 

. And yet what a fall — to give up ! to 
keep his hate for the future in its 
sheath, like a museum dagger I Terri- 
ble humiliation. 

All at once, in the nick of time — the 
immense drama of the universe loves 
such coincidences — Hardquanonne’s 
bottle comes, from wave to wave, to 
place itself in his hands. There is a 
strange docility in the unknown, which 
seems to be at the orders of wickedness. 
Barkilphedro, with any two witnesses, 
ordinary members of the Admiralty, un- 


240 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


corks the bottle, finds the parchment, 
unfolds it, reads. Imagine his mon- 
strous fiush of joy. 

It is strange to think that the sea, 
the wind, the depths, the ebb and fiow 
of the tides, the storms, the calms, the 
gales, can give themselves so much 
trouble, to end in making a rogue 
happy. This conspiracy had lasted 
fifteen years. During those fifteen 
years, the ocean had been employed, 
every minute, on its mysterious work. 
The waves had passed from one to the 
other the bottle that fioated over them, 
the rocks had avoided striking the glass, 
no crack had been made in it, no rub- 
bing had worn out the cork, the sea- 
weed had not rotted the wicker-work, 
the fish had not eaten off the word 
Eardquanonne^ the water had not 
penetrated into the waif, the mould 
had not destroyed the parchment ; what 
an amount of trouble the deep must 
have taken ! and in this manner, what 
Gernardus had thrown to the shadow of 
death, the shadow of death had restored 
to Barkilphedro, and the message sent 
to God had reached the devil. Im- 
mensity had abused its trust ; and the 
dark irony which pervades all objects 
had so contrived as to complicate this 
honest triumph — the lost child Gwyn- 
plaine becoming again Lord Clancharlie 
— with a spiteful victory, doing a good 
deed badly, and putting justice to the 
service of iniquity. To snatch his vic- 
tim from James II. was to give a prey 
to Barkilphedro. To raise Gwyn- 
plaine was to deliver up Josiane. 
Barkilphedro succeeded; and it was 
for this that, during so many years, 
waves, surges, and squalls had tossed, 
shaken, impelled, pitched about, tor- 
mented, and respected this globe of 
glass, in which so many lives were 
bound up I It was for this that wind, 
tide, and storm, had formed an alliance ! 
The vast agitation of the wonders of 
Nature showing kindness to a wretch. 


infinity working in concert with a 
worm of the dust — such are the dark 
caprices of destiny 1 

Barkilphedro had an inspiration of 
gigantic pride. He said to himself that 
all this had been done for him. He felt 
himself the centre and the object of it. 

He was wrong. Let us do justice to 
chance. This was not the real meaning 
of the singular event, by which Barkil- 
phedro’s hate was profiting. The ocean 
making itself father and mother to an 
orphan, sending the snow-storm Upon 
his assassins, crushing the bark which 
had rejected the child, whelming the 
joined hands of the shipwrecked crew, 
refusing all their prayers, and accepting 
only their repentance, the teinpest re- 
ceiving a deposit from the hands of 
death, the stout vessel which held the 
crime replaced by the fragile bottle 
which held the reparation, the sea 
changing character, like a panther turn- 
ing nurse, and rocking the cradle, not 
of the child, but of his fortune, while 
he grew up ignorant of all that the 
abyss had done for him, the waves to 
which the bottle had been thrown 
watching over this past in which there 
was a future, the hurricane blowing 
kindly over it, the currents guiding the 
frail waif across the fathomless ways 
of the sea, the precautions of the weeds, 
the swells, the rocks, all the vast foam 
of the deep taking an innocent creature 
under its protection, the billow calm as 
a conscience, chaos restoring order, the 
shadowy world ending in light, all the 
darkness used to bring out the star of 
truth, the exile consoled in his tomb, 
the heir restored to his heritage, the 
king’s crime annulled, the divine fore- 
sight obeyed, the little deserted weak- 
ling having infinity for guardian — this 
is what Barkilphedro might have seen 
in the event over which he was tri- 
umphing ; this is what he did not see. 
He did not say to himself that it had all 
been done for Gwynplaine ; he said to 


THE WANDEEER DOES NOT ALWAYS LOSE HIS WAY. 


241 


himself that it had all been done for 
Barkilphedro, and that Barkilphedro 
was worth it. Such are demons. 

Besides, one must have small knowl- 
edge of the profound clemency of 
ocean, to he astonished at a fragile waif 
being able to float fifteen years with- 
out damage. Fifteen years are noth- 
ing. October 4, 1867, in Morbihan, be- 
tween the island of Croix, the point of 
the peninsula of Gavres, and the Wan- 
derers’ Eock, some fishermen of Port 
Louis found a Koman amphora of 
the fourth century, covered with ara- 
besques formed by marine incrusta- 
tions. This amphora had floated fifteen 
hundred years. 

However phlegmatic a look Barkil- 
phedro tried to put on, his stupefaction 
had been equal to his delight. 

Every thing presented itself as if 
purposely arranged. The pieces of the 
incident which was to satisfy his ha- 
tred were strewed within his reach be- 
forehand. He had only to put them 
together and fasten them. Amusing 
arrangement to make. Nice carv- 
ing. 

Gwynplaine ! he knew that name. 
Masca ridens. Like all the world, he 
had been to see the Man Who Laughs. 
He had read the placard fastened up 
at the Tadcaster Inn, as one reads 
the bill of a play, which draws a 
crowd ; he had noticed it ; he remem- 
bered it at once in its smallest details, 
which besides he could verify after- 
ward; this play-bill, called up within 
him as if by electricity, reappeared 
before his mind’s eye and placed 
itself alongside the parchment of the 
shipwrecked sailors, as the answer 
alongside the question, the solution 
alongside the riddle; and these lines, 
“ Here you may see Gwynplaine, aban- 
doned when ten years old, the night of 
January 29, 1690, on the sea-shore at 
Portland,” suddenly assumed under his 
gaze tlie splendor of a revelation. He 
16 


had a vision of Mene^ Tekel^ TJj^liarsin^ 
flashing through the parade of a fair. 
There was an end of all the scafiblding 
which made up the life of Josiane. It 
crumbled away at once. The lost child 
was found. There was a Lord Clanchar- 
lie. David Dirry-Moir was cleaned out. 
The peerage, wealth, power, rank — 
all this left Lord David and entered into 
Gwynplaine. Every thing was Gwyn- 
plaine’s, castles, hunting-grounds, for- 
ests, mansions, palaces, domains, Josi- 
ane, and all. And Josiane, what an 
ending for her I What, had she now be- 
fore her ? A strolling actor for the lof- 
ty lady, a monster for the fastidious 
beauty. Gould any one have looked for 
that ? Barkilphedro was truly in a state 
of enthusiasm. All the most venomous 
plots may be surpassed by the infernal 
munificence of the unseen. When real- 
ity chooses, it accomplishes master- 
pieces. Barkilphedro found his dreams 
stupid. He had something better. 

If the change about to take place by 
his means had been injurious to him, 
he would have liked it none the less. 
There are insects so disinterestedly 
ferocious that they sting you, though 
knowing that they will themselves die 
of the sting. Barkilphedro belonged to 
that class of vermin. 

But, this time, he had not the merit of 
disinterestedness. Lord David Dirry- 
Moir owed him nothing, and Lord Fer- 
main Clancharlie would owe him every 
thing. From a client, Barkilphedro 
would become a protector. And pro- 
tector of whom ? Of an English peer. 
He would have a lord of his own! a 
lord who should be his creature ! for 
Barkilphedro was sure he could give 
him the first bias. And this lord would 
be the queen’s morganatic brother-in- 
law. Being ugly, he would please the 
queen just as much as he displeased 
Josiane. Advanced by this patronage, 
and wearing a grave and modest dress, 
Barkilphedro might become a person- 


242 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


age. He had always been destined for 
the church. He had a vague desire to 
be a bishop. 

Meanwhile he was happy. 

What a charming success! and how 
well chance had done all that work for 
him ! His vengeance, for he called this 
his vengeance, had been gently wafted 
to him by the waves. He had not lain 
in ambush vainly. 

He was the rock. Josiane was the 
waif. Josiane had grounded upon 
Barkilphedro ! Thorough ecstasy of 
wickedness. 

He was skilful in the art called sug- 
gestion, which consists in making a lit- 
tle slit in another’s mind, and grafting 
therein your own ideas ; while keeping 
himself aloof and not seeming to med- 
dle in the matter, he had contrived that 
Josiane should go to the Green-Box 
booth and see Gwynplaine. The moun- 
tebank seen in his low estate was a good 
ingredient in the plot. Later, it would 
be a seasoning. 

He had silently prepared every thing 
beforehand. What he wished was a 
strange surprise. The work which he 
had accomplished could only be prop- 
erly expressed by this queer phrase, 
building a thunder-stroke. 

The preliminaries finished, he had 
taken care that all the required formali- 
ties should be gone through in the legal 
form. The secret had lost nothing by 
this, for silence was part of the law. 

The confrontation of Hardquanonne 
with Gwynplaine had taken place ; 
Barkilphedro had been there. We have 
just seen the result. 

The same day, one of the queen’s post- 
coaches came suddenly, from her Ma- 
jesty, to look for Lady Josiane in Lon- 
don, in order to take her to Windsor, 
where Anne was then passing the sea- 
son. Josiane, on account of something 
which she had in her mind, would 
gladly have disobeyed, or at least de- 
layed her obedience by one day, and 


deferred this departure till the morrow, 
but court life does not allow such*re- 
fractoriness. She was obliged to start 
immediately, and quit Hunkerville 
House, her London residence, for Cor- 
leone Lodge, her Windsor residence. 

Duchess Josiane had quitted London 
at the very moment when the wapen- 
take presented himself at the Tadcaster 
Inn, to carry off Gwynplaine and take 
him to the torture-chamber of South- 
wark. 

When she arrived at Windsor, the 
usher of the black rod, who guards the 
door of the presence-chamber, informed 
her that her Majesty was shut up with 
the lord-chancellor, and could only re- 
ceive her next day ; that consequently 
she must remain at Oorleone Lodge, 
subject to her Majesty’s orders, and that 
her Majesty would send her direct 
orders early next morning. J osiane re- 
turned home very cross, supped in a 
bad humor, had a headache, sent away 
every one except her page, then sent 
him away too, and went to bed while it 
was still daylight. 

On her arrival, she had learned that 
Lord David Dirry-Moir, having received 
at sea an order to come home immedi- 
ately and receive instructions from her 
Majesty, was expected, next day, at 
Windsor. 

III. 

NO MAN COULD PASS ABEUPTLT FROM SI- 

BEEIA TO SENEGAL, WITHOUT LOSING 

CONSCIOUSNESS. — Humholdt. 

Foe a man to faint, even the strong- 
est and most energetic, under a sudden 
blow of Fortune’s mace, ought not to 
cause much surprise. A man is knocked 
down by the unexpected, as the ox by 
the butcher’s pole-axe. Francesco d’Al- 
bescola — he who tore up the iron chains 
that barred Turkish ports — remained 
unconscious for a whole day when he 
was made pope. How, from cardinal 


NO MAN, ETC. 


243 


to pope the stride is less, than from 
mountebank to peer of England. 

NTothing so violent as destruction of 
equilibrium. 

When Gwynplaine came to himself 
and op'ened his eyes, it was ni^t. 
Gwynplaine was in an arm-chair, in the 
middle of a vast chamber all hung with 
purple velvet — walls, ceiling, floor. 
There was velvet to walk on. Near 
him was standing, bareheaded, the 
man, with fat paunch and travelling- 
cloak, who had slipped from behind a 
pillar in the vault at Southwark. Gwyn- 
plaine was alone with this man, in this 
room. From his arm-chair, by stretch- 
ing his arm, he could touch two tables, 
each having on it a candelabrum with 
three wax candles lighted. On one of 
these tables there were papers and a 
casket; on the other — in case they 
should he needed — cold chicken, wine, 
brandy, set upon a silver-gilt tray. 

Through the glass of a tall window, 
reaching from the floor to the ceiling, a 
clear April night rendered visible, out- 
side, a half-circle of columns round a 
court-of-honor, closed by a triple en- 
trance-way, having one high and two 
lower gates. A carriage-way on a large 
scale was in the middle ; on the right 
the portal for horsemen, smaller ; on the 
left the door for persons on foot, smaller 
still. These openings were closed with 
iron railings, the points of which shone 
bright ; high up, a group in sculpture 
crowned the central gates. The col- 
umns were probably of white marble, 
as well as the pavement of the court- 
yard, which produced the effect of 
snow, and which framed in, with its 
flat sheet of stones, a mosaic confusedly 
made out in the shadow. This mosaic, 
without doubt, if seen by daylight with 
all its emeralds and all its colors, would 
have shone a gigantic blazon after the 
Florentine mode. Zigzags of balus- 
trades mounted and descended, indi- 
cating flights of steps and terraces. An 


immense jule of architecture, dim and 
vague, inasmuch as it was night, reared 
itself above the court. Intervals of 
sky, filled with stars, defined the out- 
line of the palace. 

There might he seen a roof of im- 
moderate height, gables with volutes, 
attics with openings like the visor of a 
helmet, chimneys like turrets, and en- 
tablatures covered with immovable gods 
and goddesses. Beyond the colonnade 
a fountain was playing in the half- 
shadow — one of those fairy fountains 
that murmur softly, pour themselves 
out from basin to basin, mingle spray 
with the cascade, resemble the breaking 
up of a jewel-box, and make to the 
breeze a mad distribution of their dia- 
monds and their pearls, as though to 
divert the ennui of the statues around 
them. Long rows of windows were 
marked out distinctly, separated by 
panoplies in high relief, and by busts 
upon bracket-pedestals. Trophies and 
morions with plumes in stone alternated 
on the blocking-courses with the gods. 

In the chamber wherein Gwynplaine 
found himself, at the end opposite the 
window, was seen on one side a fire- 
place as lofty as the wall, and on the 
other, under a dais, one of those vast 
feudal beds into which you mount by 
steps, and in which you can lie cross- 
wise. The stepping-stool was beside it. 
A row of arm-chairs close under the 
walls, and a row of other chairs in front 
of the arm-chairs, completed the furni- 
ture. The ceiling was rounded in form. 
A huge fire of wood, in French fashion, 
was ablaze in the fireplace. A con- 
noisseur would have declared, from a 
certain richness in the flames, and from 
their varying flickers of rose and green, 
that the wood was ash, an expensive 
luxury. The room was so large, that 
the two candelabra left it partially ob- 
scure. Here and there tapestry, hung 
low and floating, indicated communica- 
tion with other rooms. The whole had 


244 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


the square-set and massive aspect com- 
mon in the time of James I, a mode an- 
tique and superb. Like the carpet and 
the hangings of the chamber, dais, can- 
opy, bed, stepping-stool, curtains, man- 
tel-piece, table-covers, arm-chairs, ordi- 
nary chairs — every thing, was in purple 
velvet. No gold, except on the ceiling. 
There, at equal distance from the four 
corners, an immense circular shield, in 
repousse metal and laid flat, was gleam- 
ing ; and on it sparkled a coat-of-arms 
in dazzling relief. In this coat-of-arms 
might be seen a baron’s row of small 
pearls and a marquis’s coronet, em- 
blazoned side by side. Was it in cop- 
per-gilt? Was it in silver-gilt? That 
was not known. It seemed to be of 
gold. And upon this seignorial ceiling 
— a sky magnificent and obscure — the 
flaming escutcheon shone dimly as a 
sun in the night. 

An uncivilized man, with whom is 
amalgamated a free man, is almost as 
uneasy in a palace as in a prison. This 
gorgeous place was perplexing. All 
magnificence gives room for afiright. 
Who could be the inhabitant of this 
august abode? To what colossus did 
all this grandeur belong! Of what 
lion was this palace the den ? Gwyn- 
plaine, hardly yet awake, felt his heart 
oppressed. 

— Where am I ? said he. 

The man, who was standing up before 
him, answered : 

— You are in your own house, my 
lord. 

IV. 

FASCINATION. 

Time is requisite for coming to the 
surface. 

Gwynplaine had been cast into the 
very depth of stupefaction. 

Y'ou cannot establish a footing, all at 
once, in the unknown. 

There are total routs of ideas, as 


there are total routs of armies ; rally- 
ing is not a thing of a moment. 

You may feel yourselt^ in some sort, 
scattered in pieces. You may assist at 
. your own strange dispersion. 

God is the arm ; chance is the sling ; 
man is the stone. Kesist, then, if once 
launched ! 

Gwynplaine — let the expression be 
permitted us — ricochetted from one 
astonishment -.to another. After the 
duchess’s love-letter, the revelation of 
the Southwark vault. 

In destiny, when the unexpected be- 
gins, be prepared for this : blow upon 
blow. The fierce door once opened, 
surprises throw themselves in. The 
breach made in your wall — the pell-mell 
of events is engulfed there. The extra- 
ordinary comes not for a single time. 

The extraordinary consists in obscu- 
rity. This obscurity was around Gwyn- 
plaine. What happened to him seemed 
to be unintelligible to him. He looked 
at every thing through the mist that a 
profound commotion leaves in the in- 
telligence, as it were the dust of falling 
ruins. The shock had been from top to 
bottom. Nothing tangible oflered itself 
to him. Nevertheless, a clearance always 
takes place by degrees. The dust settles 
down. Trom moment to moment, the 
density of astonishment diminishes — 
Gwynplaine was like some one who 
might have his eye open and fixed in a 
dream, and who might try to make out 
what there was therein. He decom- 
posed, and then recomposed again, this 
cloud over him. His wanderings were 
intermittent. He underwent the sway- 
ing to and fro of the mind in the unfore- 
seen, that, by turns, impels you from 
the side where you comprehend, and 
from the side where you comprehend 
not. To whom has it not occurred to 
have this pendulum in the brain ? 

By degrees an enlargement took place 
in his thought, amid the obscurity of 
the incident, just as the pupil of his eye 


FASCINATION. 


245 


had dilated amid the subterranean ob- 
scurity of Southwark. The difficult 
thing was, to achieve the spacing out 
of a certain interval between so many 
accumulated sensations. There must be 
air between the emotions, in order that 
the firing-up — which we call compre- 
hension — may be effectual. Here the 
air was wanting. The event, so to say, 
was not breathable. On entering the 
terrific vault of Southwark, Gwynplaine 
had expected the convict’s shackles ; 
they had put a peer’s coronet on his 
head. How was this possible? There 
was not sufficient room, between what 
Gwynplaine had dreaded and what had 
happened to him — this latter had suc- 
ceeded too abruptly — ^his alarm had 
been changed too suddenly into the re- 
verse, for him to see it with distinctness. 
The two contrasts touched each other 
too nearly. Gwynplaine made efforts 
to extricate his mind from their gripe. 

He remained silent. Such is the in- 
stinct of heavy stupor, which is on the 
defensive more than one believes. He 
who say^nothing, is facing every thing. 
A word that you let fall, seized by the 
unknown toothing of wheels that you 
know not, may draw you completely 
under them. 

To be crushed is the dread of the 
lowly. The crowd fears always that a 
foot will be put upon it. How, Gwyn- 
plaine had been, for a very long time, 
of the crowd. 

One singular condition of human in- 
quietude is expressed by the word : 
forecast. Gwynplaine was in this con- 
dition. You do not yet feel yourself on 
a level with a juncture that is approach- 
ing. You are .watching something 
that must have a sequence. You are 
vaguely attentive. You see the coming 
on. Of what? You know not. Of 
whom ? You are waiting to see. 

The man of the fat paunch repeated : 

— You are in your own house, my 
ford. 


Gwynplaine passed his hand over 
himself. When surprised suddenly, 
we look — to assure ourselves that such 
things are ; then we feel ourselves — to 
be assured that we verily exist. It was 
to himself, in fact, that they had spoken ; 
but he himself was another person. He 
had on no longer his hooded cloak and 
his leather coUar. He had on a waist- 
coat of cloth of silver, and a satin coat, 
on touching which he perceived that it 
was embroidered. He found a large 
purse, well filled, in his waistcoat 
pocket. Wide knee-breeches of velvet 
covered over his tight clown’s small- 
clothes. He was wearing shoes with 
high red heels. Just as they had trans- 
ported him into this palace, they had 
changed his attire for him. 

The man resumed : 

— Let your lordship deign to remem- 
ber this : It is I who am named Bar- 
kilphedro. I am a clerk at the Admi- 
ralty. It was I who opened Hardqua- 
nonne’s gourd, and who dreiv forth 
your destiny from it. Thus, in the 
Arabian Nights, a fisherman makes a 
giant come out of a bottle. 

Gwynplaine set his eyes upon the 
smiling countenance that addressed 
him. 

Barkilphedro continued : 

— Besides this palace, my lord, you 
have IlunkerviUe House, which is larger. 
You have Clancharlie Castle, whence 
your peerage is derived, and which is 
a fortress of the time of Edward the 
Elder. You have nineteen bailiwicks 
of your own, with their villages and 
their peasants. This puts under your 
banner of lord and of nobleman about 
eighty thousand vassals and tributaries. 
At Clancharlie, you are judge, judge of 
every thing, chattels and persons, and 
you hold your court as baron. The 
king has only the advantage over you 
of the right to stamp money. The king, 
whom the Norman law entitles chief- 
signor, has justice, court, and coin. 


246 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Coin means money. YTith that excep- 
tion, you are king in your lordship, as he 
in his kingdom. You are entitled prince, 
in the old charters of Northumbria. You 
are allied with the Viscounts Valentia 
in Ireland, who are Powers, and with 
the Earls of Umfraville in Scotland, 
who are Anguses. You are a chief of 
clan, like Campbell, Ardmannach, and 
Mac-Callummore. You have eight de- 
pendencies, Keculver, Buxton, Hell- 
Kesters, Homhle, Moricamhe, Gum- 
draith, Trenwardraith, and others. 
You have tolls upon the peat-hogs of 
Pillimmore and the alabaster-quarries 
of Trent; furthermore, . you have all 
the country of Penneth-Chase, and you 
have a mountain with an old town that 
is upon it. The town is called Yine- 
Cfr.-.nton ; the mountain is called Moil- 
culli. All this brings you in a revenue 
of forty thousand pounds sterling, that 
is to say forty times the twenty-five 
thousand francs of income with which 
a Frenchman is content. 

While Barkilphedro was speaking, 
Gwynplaine, in a crescendo of astonish- 
ment, recalled the past. Memory is a 
receptacle for things swallowed up, that 
a word may stir to its depths. Gwyn- 
plaine knew all the names pronounced 
by Barkilphedro. They were inscribed 
in the last lines of the two placards that 
adorned the hut wherein his childhood 
had slipped away, and he had learned 
them by heart, while letting his eyes 
wander mechanically over them. On 
arrival, abandoned orphan as he was, 
at the travelling-booth of Weymouth, 
he had found awaiting him there the 
inventory of his heritage ; and in the 
morning, when the poor little fellow 
woke, the first thing spelt out by his 
unconscious and absent look was his 
lordship and his peerage. Strange spe- 
cialty added to all his surprises — for 
fifteen years, prowling about from one 
public place to another, clown of the 
nomadic trestle-board, earning his 


bread from day to day, picking up far- 
things and living on crumbs, he had 
travelled always with his fortune pasted 
up over his misery I 

Barkilphedro touched with his fore- 
finger the casket that was on the 
table. 

— My lord, this casket contains two 
thousand guineas, which her gracious 
Majesty the queen has sent you for 
your first necessities. 

Gwynplaine moved on his chair. 

— They shall be for my father, Brsus, 
said he. 

— Just so, my lord, replied Barkil- 
phedro. Ursus at the Tadcaster Inn. 
The sergeant-at-law, who came here 
with us and is going away immediately, 
will carry them to him. Perhaps I my- 
self shall go to London. In that case, it 
will be I. I will undertake it. 

— I will take them myself, observed 
Gwynplaine. 

Barkilphedro ceased to smile, and 
said : 

— Impossible ! 

There is an inflection of voice that 
underlines. Barkilphedro had this ac- 
cent. He stopped, as though to em- 
phasize the word that he had just ut- 
tered. Then he went on, in the respect- 
ful and peculiar tone of a valet who 
smacks of the master. 

— My lord, you are here twenty-five 
miles distant from London, at Corleone 
Lodge, your court residence, adjoining 
the royal castle of Windsor. You are 
here without any one’s knowledge. You 
were brought here in a close carriage 
that was in waiting for you at the gate 
of Southwark jail. The people who let 
you into this palace are ignorant who 
you are ; but they know me, and that 
is enough. It was practicable to bring 
yqu into this very apartment, by means 
of a private key in my possession. The 
other persons in the house are asleep, 
and it is not the hour for the servants 
to wake up. We have time, therefore. 


FASCINATION. 


247 


for an explanation, whicli will, further- 
more, be short. I am about to make it 
to you. I am commissioned by her Ma- 
jesty. 

Barkilpbedro, while speaking, began 
to ferret in a bundle of papers that was 
near the casket. 

— llere, my lord, is your peer’s pat- 
ent. Here the brevet of your Sicilian 
marquisate. Here the parchments and 
diplomas of your eight baronies, with 
the seals of eleven kings, from Baldret, 
King of Kent, down to James YI. and 
I., King of England and Scotland. Here 
is your patent of precedence. Here 
are your leases, and the titles and de- 
scriptions of your fiefs, freeholds, ten- 
ures, lands, and domains. What you 
have overhead, in the blazon of the 
ceiling, is your two coronets, the baron’s 
row of pearls, and the marquis’s jew- 
elled circlet. Here, at this side, in your 
wardrobe, is your peer’s robe of red 
velvet bordered with ermine. This very 
day, some hours since, the Lord-Chan- 
cellor and the deputy Earl-Marshal 
of England — having been informed of 
the result of your confrontation with 
the comprachicos, Hardquanonne — took 
her Majesty’s orders. Her Majesty 
signed according to her good pleasure, 
which is the same thing as law. All 
formalities are fulfilled. To-morrow, 
no later than to-morrow, you will be ad- 
mitted to the House of Lords, wherein, 
for several days past, there has been 
under discussion a bill presented by the 
crown, the object of which is to in- 
crease the annual dotation of the Duke 
of Cumberland, the queen’s husband, 
by one hundred thousand pounds ster- 
ling, equivalent to two millions, five 
hundred thousand French livres. You 
will be enabled to take part in the dis- 
cussion. 

Barkilpbedro -stopped for a moment, 
drew a long breath, and went on : 

— Nothing, however, is done yet. 
One does not become an English peer 


in spite of one’s self. All may be an- 
nulled and disappear, if you do not en- 
ter into it. In political life, it some- 
times occurs that an event falls to pieces 
before being disclosed. My lord, at this 
hour, silence concerning you still pre- 
vails. The House of Lords will only 
be advised of the facts, to-morrow. The 
secret of all your atfair has been 
kept for state reasons, which are in 
themselves of so much importance that 
grave personages, only informed at 
present of your existence and of your 
rights, will forget them immediately, if 
called upon by state reasons to forget 
them. What lies in the dark may re- 
main in the dark. It is easy to efface 
you. This is so much the easier, be- 
cause you have a brother, the natural 
son of your father, and of a worn. 
who subsequently, during the exile of 
your father, was a mistress of King 
Charles H., so that your brother stands 
well at court. Now, it is to this brother, 
bastard though he is, that your peerage 
would revert. Would you desire that? 
I do not suppose it. Well, then every 
thing depends on yourself. The queen 
must be obeyed. You will only leave 
this residence to-morrow, in one of the 
queen’s carriages, and to go to the 
House of Lords. My lord, will you be 
a peer of England — yes, or no? The 
queen has intentions regarding you. 
She designs for you an alliance quasi- 
royal. Lord Fermain Clancharlie, this 
is the decisive moment. Destiny does 
not open one door, without closing 
another. After certain steps forward, 
a step backward is no longer possible. 
Whoever enters into transfiguration has 
a swooning-away behind him. My lord, 
Gwynplaine is dead. Do you compre- 
hend it ? 

Gwynplaine trembled from head to 
foot ; then he rallied himself. 

— Yes, said he. 

Barkilpbedro smiled, bowed, took the 
casket under his cloak, and left the room. 


248 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


y. 

FOEGETFULNESS BELIEVING THAT IT EE- 
MEMBEES. 

What are these strange changes at 
sight, that take place in the human 
soul? 

Gwynplaine had been, at the same 
time, raised up to an eminence, and pre- 
cipitated into an abyss. 

He had a vertigo. 

A double vertigo. 

The vertigo of an ascent, and the 
vertigo of a fall. 

Fatal compound. 

He had felt himself to be mounting 
up, and had not felt himself to be falling 
down. 

There is something formidable in the 
aspect of a new horizon. 

A vista suggests counsel. Not always 
good. 

He had had before him the fairy 
opening — snare, perhaps — of a cloud 
that breaks away, and that .shows the 
deep azure. 

So deep, that it is dark. 

He was on the mopntain, whence are 
visible the kingdoms of the earth. 

Mountain aU the more terrible, that it 
has no existence. They are in a dream, 
who are on this summit. 

So devouring and so potent is temp- 
tation there, that hell on that eminence 
hopes to corrupt paradise, and thus the 
devil brings God thither. 

To fascinate eternity — ^how strange a 
hope! 

There, where Satan tempted Jesus, 
how should a man be able to struggle ? 

Palaces, country-seats, power, opu- 
lence, all human felicity, as far as the 
eye can reach around you — a map of 
the world of enjoyment spread out to 
the horizon — a sort of geographical ra- 
diance, w'hereof you are the centre; 
perilous mirage 1 


Figure to yourself the troublous effect 
of such a vision — not brought on by de- 
grees, without preliminary steps to be 
passed over, without preparation, with- 
out transition ! 

A man going to sleep in a mole’s 
hole, and awaking on the highest point 
of Strasburg Cathedral spire — such was 
Gwynplaine. 

Vertigo is a kind of fearful lucidity. 
That vertigo especially, which, carry- 
ing you at once toward day and toward 
night, is made up of two wheelings in 
contrary directions. 

You see too much — and not enough. 

You see all — and nothing. 

You are what the author of this book 
has called elsewhere, “the blind man 
dazzled.” 

Gwynplaine, left alone, began walk- 
ing up and down with hurried steps. A 
boiling-over precedes an explosion. 

Amid this turmoil, in this impossi- 
bility of remaining - still, he reflected. 
The boiling-over was a solution. He 
mustered up his recollections. How 
surprising is it, that we should have 
listened so well to what we believed wo 
scarcely heard ! The declaration of the 
lost mariners, read by the sheriff in the 
vault of Southwark, came back to him 
clear and intelligible. He recalled its 
every word. Underneath it, he saw 
again all his childhood. 

Suddenly he stopped, his hands behind 
his back, looking up at the ceiling — or 
heaven, it matters not which — at what 
was up above. 

— Y engeance ! said he. 

He was like a man raising his head 
out of the water. It seemed to him 
that he saw every thing — the past, the 
future, the present, in the glare of a 
sudden brightness. 

— Ah ! cried he — for there are cries 
from the depths of thought — ah ! it was 
thus, then. I was a lord. All is re- 
vealed. Ah! they have robbed, be- 
trayed, ruined, disinherited, abandoned, 


FOEGETFULNESS BELIEVING THAT IT KEMEMBEES. 


249 


assassinated me! The corpse of my 
destiny has floated for fifteen years upon 
the sea, and all at once it has touched 
ground, and has upreared itself stand- 
ing and living 1 I come to life again ! 
I am horn! Well might I feel some- 
thing else than a miserable wretch 
palpitating underneath my rags; and 
when I turned to the side of men, well 
might I feel that they were the flock, and 
that I was — not the dog, hut — the 
shepherd. Pastors of peoples, leaders 
of men, guides and masters — that is what 
my forefathers were; and what they 
were, I am! I am gentleman, and I 
have a sword ; I am baron, and I have 
a casque ; I am marquis, and I have a 
plume ; I am peer, and I have a coro- 
net. Ah ! they had taken all this from 
me! I was an inhabitant of light, 
and they made me an inhabitant of 
darkness. They, who had proscribed 
the father, sold the child. When my 
father was dead, they drew from under 
his head the stone of exile that he had 
for pillow, and they put it about my 
neck and cast me into the common 
sewer. Oh! those vagrants who tor- 
tured my childhood! Yes, they are 
stirring, and raising themselves up in 
the very depth of my memory! Yes, I 
see them once more 1 I have been the 
morsel of flesh pecked at, upon a tomb, 
by a flight of ravens. I have bled and 
I have cried, under all these horrible 
creatures outlined before me. Ah ! 
then, there it was that they precipitated 
me, subject to bo crushed by those who 
come and go, to be stamped upon by 
everybody, below the lowest level of 
the human race, lower than the serf, 
lower than the valet, lower than the 
black guard, lower than the slave, at 
the spot where chaos becomes the clo- 
aca, at the very point of disappearance. 
And it is thence, that I emerge I It is 
thence, that I reascend! It is thence, 
that I come again into life ! And here 
I am ! Vengeance ! 


He sat down, got up, took his head 
in his hands, renewed his walk. Then 
this monologue of the tempest was con- 
tinued within him : 

— Where am I ? On the summit ! 
Where is it that I have just alighted? 
On the pinnacle ! This peak — greatness, 
that cupola of the world — omnipotence, 
is my abode. I am one of the gods of 
this temple in the air. I am lodged in 
the inaccessible. This height that I 
looked at from below, and whence 
there fell so many rays that they caused 
me to close my eyes, this unassailable 
lordship, this impregnable fortress of 
the happy — ^I enter it. I am in it. I 
am of it. Ah! definitive turn of the 
wheel ! I was low down ; I aril high 
up ! High up, forever ! A lord am I ! 
I shall have a mantle of scarlet ; I shall 
have gems upon my head; I shall assist 
at the coronation of kings, who will take 
oath of office before me ; I shall sit in 
judgment on ministers and princes ; I 
shall have an existence. From the 
depths into which they had plunged 
me, I spring upward even to the zenith. 
I have town and country palaces, 
gardens, hunting-grounds, forests, car- 
riages, millions. I shall give fetes, I 
shall make laws, I shall have the choice 
of happiness and delights; and the 
vagabond Gwynplaine, who did not 
have the right to pick a flower from the 
grass, will be able to cull stars from 
heaven. 

Funereal reentry of shadow into the 
soul I Thus in this Gwynplaine, who 
had been a hero — and who, let it be 
said, had not perhaps ceased to be one 
— the substitution of material for moral 
greatness was at work. Doleful tran- 
sition ! The breaking in upon a virtue, 
by a troop of demons passing by. A 
surprise made good upon man’s weak 
side. All the inferior things — called 
superior — ambition, the equivocal will 
of instinct, the passions, the lusts, held 
aloof from Gwynplaine by the salutary 


250 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


effect of misfortune — were taking tu- 
multuous repossession of that generous 
heart. And whence had this arisen? 
From the godsend of a parchment, in a 
waif drifted about bj the sea. This 
might be called the rape of conscience 
bj chance. 

Gwynplaine was drinking deep 
draughts of pride, which tended to ob- 
scure his soul. Such is this tragic wine. 

This giddiness had invaded him ; he 
did more than consent to it — he relished 
it. Effect of long thirst ; we become 
accomplices of the cup, wherein we 
lose our reason. He had always had 
a vague hankering after this. He 
looked unceasingly toward the side of 
the great ; to look is to wish for. Hot 
with impunity is the eaglet born in the 
air. 

To be a lord! Now! At certain mo- 
ments he found this quite easy. 

But few hours had slipped away; 
how far . off already was the past of 
yesterday ! 

Gwynplaine had encountered the 
ambush of “the better” — enemy of 
“ the good.” 

Ill luck for him of whom it is said : 
“ How happy he is ! ” 

Adversity is better resisted than 
prosperity. "We draw ourselves out of 
evil fortune, less injured than out of 
good fortune. Wretchedness is Charyb- 
dis ; but Scylla is wealth. They, who 
stood upright against the thunderbolt, 
are thrown down by being dazzled. 
O thou, who wert not astounded at the 
precipice, have a fear of being carried 
away by the wings, in legion, of cloud 
and dream! The ascension will at 
once elevate thee and lessen ; the apo- 
theosis has a sinister power in pulling 
down. 

To know one’s self, in happiness, is 
by no means easy. Luck is nothing else 
than a disguise. Nothing is so deceit- 
ful as its countenance. Is it Provi- 
dence ? Is it Fatality ? 


A brightness may be not a bright- 
ness. For light is truth, and a gleam 
may be a trick. You fancy that it en- 
lightens ; no, it burns. 

It is night ; a hand places a candle — 
vile tallow become a star — at the edge 
of an opening in the darkness. The 
moth goes to it. 

In what degree is he responsible ? 

The look of the fire fascinates the 
moth, just as the look of the snake 
fascinates the bird. 

Is it possible that the moth and the 
bird should not go thither ? Is it pos- 
sible for the leaf to refuse obedience to 
the wind ? Is it possible for the stone 
to refuse obedience to gravitation ? 

Material questions these, which are 
also moral questions. 

After the duchess’s letter, Gwynplaine 
had recovered himself. There were 
within him certain deep-rooted fasten- 
ings, that had resisted. But hurricanes, 
after having exhausted the wind on one 
side of the horizon, recommence from 
the other ; and Destiny, like Nature, 
has its blind fury. The first blast 
shakes ; the second uproots. 

Alas ! How is it that oaks fall ? 

Thus, he, who a child ten years old, 
alone on the cliffs of Portland, ready to 
give battle, looked firmly at the combat- 
ants whom he was about to engage — 
the sudden squall that bore away the 
vessel whereon he thought he was to 
embark, the depths that robbed him of 
that plank of safety, the yawning void 
that threatened to fall back, the earth 
that refused him a shelter, the zenith 
that refused him a star, the solitude 
unpitying, the obscurity impenetrable, 
the ocean, the heavens, all the violences 
in one infinite and all the enigmas in 
the other ; he, who had not trembled, 
nor given way, before the hostile enor- 
mity of the unknown ; he, who, being 
little, had held his own against night, 
as the ancient Hercules had held his 
own against death ; he, who, in this 


FOKGETFULNESS BELIEVING THAT IT EEMEMBEES. 


251 


immeasurable conflict, had openly defied 
all the chances against himself, by 
adopting a child, he himself being a 
child, and by embarrassing himself 
with a burden, he himself being fragile 
and weary, thus rendering easier the 
attacks upon his weakness, and taking 
off himself the muzzles from the shad- 
owy monsters in ambush around him ; 
he, who, an under-aged tamer of beasts, 
had all at once, from his first steps out- 
side his cradle, faced his destiny hand 
to hand ; he, whose disproportion with 
the struggle had not hindered him from 
struggling ; he, who, seeing suddenly a 
fearful occultation of the human race 
made around him, had accepted this 
eclipse, and proudly continued his 
course ; he, who must have endured 
cold and thirst and hunger, valiantly ; 
he, who a pigmy in stature, had been a 
colossus in soul ; this Gwynplaine, who 
had overcome the immense wind of the 
abyss — ^under its double form, tempest 
and wretchedness — staggered under this 
light breeze, vanity ! 

Thus — when she has exhausted dis- 
tresses, bereavements, storms, bellow- 
ings, catastrophes, agonies^ upon a man 
who stands up against them — Fatality 
begins to smile ; and man, suddenly be- 
come intoxicated, reels. 

The smile of Fatality I Can one ima- 
gine any thing more terrible ? It is the 
last resort of the unpitying assayer of 
souls, who proves men. The tiger, that 
is in destiny, puts out sometimes a vel- 
vet paw. Kedoubtable preparation I 
Hideous sweetness of a monster ! 

Every man may have observed within 
himself the coincidence of weakening, 
with increase of size. A sudden growth 
dislocates, and causes fever. 

Gwynplaine had in 'his brain the 
giddy turmoil of a crowd of novelties, 
all the cMdro-scuro of metamorphosis, 
one knows not what of strange con- 
frontings, the shock of the past against 
the future, two Gwjmplaines, himself 


doubled — in the background, a child in 
rags, emerging from darkness, prowling 
round, shivering, hungered, causing 
laughter — in the foreground, a brilliant 
nobleman, ostentatious, superb, dazzling 
London. He shook himself clear of the 
one, and amalgamated himself with the 
other. He came forth from the mounte- 
bank, and entered into the lord. Changes 
of skin these, which are sometimes 
changes of soul. At moments it was 
too much like a dream. It was com- 
plex, bad and good. He thought of his 
father. Anguish — a father who is an 
unknown one! He tried to picture 
him. He thought of the brother, whom 
he had just heard mentioned. Thus 
there was a family. 'What! a family 
for him, Gwynplaine I He lost himself 
amid these fantastic scaffoldings. He 
had apparitions of magnificences ; wild 
solemnities passed in clouds before 
him; he heard flourishes of trum- 
pets. 

— And then, said he to himself, I 
shall be eloquent. 

And he figured to himself a splendid 
entry into the House of Lords. He ar- 
rived, puffed up with new ideas. What 
would he not have to say ! What pro- 
vision had he not laid in ! What advan- 
tage to be, in the midst of them, the one 
man who has seen, touched, undergone, 
suffered ; and to be able to exclaim to 
them: — “I have been close to that 
wherefrom you are far off” — to those 
aristocrats yet full of illusions. He 
will throw the reality into their faces ; 
and they will tremble, for it will be 
true ; and they will applaud, for it will 
be grand. He will rise up among these 
all-potent ones, more potent than they. 
He will appear to them as a torch- 
bearer, for he will show tliem the truth ; 
as a sword-bearer, for he will show 
them justice. What a triumph ! 

And all the while that he was thus 
building up fancies in his mind — at once 
lucid and confused — ^he experienced sen- 


252 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


sations of delirium, sank down into tlie 
first cliair at hand, had a sense of drowsi- 
ness, and then sudden starts. He walked 
to and fro, looked at the ceiling, exam- 
ined the coronets, studied vaguely the 
hieroglyphics of the blazon, felt with 
his fingers the velvet of the w^alls, 
moved the chairs about, turned over 
the parchments, read the names, spelt 
the titles, Buxton, Homhle, Gum- 
draith, Hunkerville, Clancharlie, com- 
pared the w'ax and the seals, stroked 
the silken tresses of the royal signet, 
drew near the window, listened to the 
jet of the fountain, made out the 
statues, counted the marble columns 
with the patience of a somnambulist — 
and said : “ All this is real.” 

And he touched his satin coat, and 
asked himself : 

— Is this myself? Y'es. — The inner 
tempest was at its height. 

In this great storm, did he feel any 
weakness, any sense of fatigue ? Did he 
drink ? Did he eat ? Did-he sleep ? If he 
did, it was without his own knowledge. 
In certain critical situations, the in- 
stincts satisfy themselves at their good- 
will, without the thought taking any 
part in the matter. Besides, his thought 
was less a thought than a mfst. Has 
the crater any consciousness of the flocks 
that crop the grass at the foot of its moun- 
tain, at the moment when the dark 
flaming of the eruption vomits itself 
forth in whirlwinds from its pit ? 

The hours passed. 

The dawn appeared, and made light. 
A white ray penetrated into the cham- 
ber, and at the same time entered into 
Gwynplaine’s spirit. 

— And Dea? said the bright gleam. 


BOOK VI. 

UESUS FEOM YAEIOTJS POINTS OF 
VIEW. 

I. 

WHAT THE MISANTHEOPIST SAYS. 

After TJrsus had seen Gwynplaine 
bury himself under the doorway of 
Southwark jail, he remained, haggard, 
in the nook which he had made his 
point of observation. For a long 
time, he had in his ear that grinding 
noise of locks and holts, which seems 
to he the prison’s howl of joy in de- 
vouring a victim. He awaited. "What ? 
He watched. What ? Those inexora- 
ble doors, once shut, open not again 
in a hurry. They are stiffened- in the 
joints by their stagnation in dark- 
ness; and their movements become 
difficult, especially in the matter of 
deliverance. Going in — that’s all 
right ; going out — that’s different. 
Brsus knew this. But we cannot give 
up waiting just according to our own 
good pleasure. We wait on, in spite 
of ourselves. . That which we are do- 
ing brings into operation an acquired 
force, which persists even when there 
is no longer an object, which possesses 
and holds us fast, and which compels 
us to continue for a certain period 
what is henceforward without aim. 
Useless gazing ; silly attitude, that we 
have aU assumed upon occasion; loss 
of time, that mechanically makes every 
man attentive to something passed 
away! There is no escape from this 
fixity. You insist with a sort of heed- 
less obstinacy. You know not why 
you remain in the place where you are; 
but you do remffin there. What is ac- 
tively begun is continued passively. 
Exhausting tenacity, whence you issue 
overwhelmed! Ursus, different as he 
was from other men, was nevertheless, 
like any one else, nailed to his spot by 


WHAT THE MISANTHROPIST SAYS. 


253 



w. 


that compound of reverie and watchful- 
I ness, into which we are plunged by an 
event, that may to us be every thing, 
while we can effect nothing in regard 
to it. He looked by turns at the two 
blackened walls, sometimes at the low- 
er, sometimes at the higher one, some- 
times at the door whereat was the 
sheriff’s ladder, sometimes at the door 
whereon was the death’s-head. He 
was, as it were, nipped in this vice, 
compounded of prison and burial- 
Ig ground. The street, shunned and 
unpopular, had so few passers-by, that 
TJrsus was not noticed. 

[ ‘1 ■ At last he emerged from the shel- 
[ J tering corner, such as it was — a sort 
of chance sentry-box where he had 
been on the look-out — and walked 
slowly away. The day was declining, 
so long had he been upon guard. 
From time to time he turned his head, 

! and scrutinized the fearful low wicket- 
!: gate by which Gwynplaine had gone 

in. His eye was glassy and inexpresj:_ 
sive. He reached the end of the lane, 
took one street, and then another, 
vaguely retracing the itinerary which 
he had followed, some hours earlier. 
At intervals he turned round, as 
though he could still see the » prison- 
door, albeit no longer in the street 
wherein was the jail. By degrees 
he drew near the Tarrinzeau-Field. 
The lanes, that bordered the fair- 
ground, were deserted pathways be- 
tween garden enclosures. He walked 
alongside the hedges and ditches, op- 
pressed and bent down. All at once, 
he stopped, drew himself up, and 
exclaimed : — So much the better I 

At the same time he struck himself 
two blows with his fists upon the head, 
then two upon the thighs, which is the 
action of a man who has come to a 
just conclusion. 

And he began to mutter in his 
sleeve, by fits and starts, and loudly : 

— It’s all right ! Ah ! the beggar ! 


the brigand ! the vagabond I the sedi- 
tious scamp ! It was his comments on 
the government that brought him 
there! He was a rebel. I had a 
rebel in my household. I am relieved 
of him. I am lucky. He was com- 
promising us. Stuck into prison I 
Ah ! so much the better ! Excellence 
of the laws. . . . Ah 1 the ungrateful 
fellow ! I, who had brought him up 1 
Yes : take pains I What need had he 
to be speaking and arguing? He 
mixed himself up with state questions ! 
I just ask you! In handling small 
coin, he has railed against taxation, 
against the poor, against the people, 
against that which did not concern 
him ! He allowed himself to make re- 
flections upon the pence. He passed 
remarks, wickedly and maliciously, on 
the copper coinage of the realm ! He 
insulted her Majesty’s half-pennies ! 
A farthing — why it is the same as the 
queen herself, a sacred efiigy ; zounds, 
a sacred effigy ! Have we a queen, 
yes or no ? Eespect, then, her verdi- 
gris ! All sticks well together in the 
government. 0ne ought to be aware 
of that. I have lived, I have ; I know 
things. I shall be told: “But you 
give up politics, then ? ” Politics, my 
friends ? I care as much for them as 
for the shaggy coat of a jackass. One 
day, I received a caning from a bar- 
onet. I said to myself: “That’s 
enough ! ” I understand politics. The 
people have but one farthing; they 
give it ; the queen takes it ; the people 
thank her. Hothing more simple. 
The rest regards the lords ; their lord- 
ships, the lords spiritual and temporal. 
Ah! Gwynplaine is under lock and 
key ! Ah ! he is bound for the hulks ! 
That’s just! That’s equitable, excel- 
lent, deserved, legitimate ! It’s his own 
fault. ‘Babbling is forbidden. Art 
thou a lord, goose-cap ? The wapen- 
take arrested him; the justice of the 
quorum carried him off; the sheriff 


254 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


holds him fast. By this time he must 
be picked clean by some sergeant-at- 
law. Ah, how they pluck you a trans- 
gressor, those fellows I Clapped into 
jail, my saucy varlet I So much the 
worse for him, so much the better for 
me! In faith, I am thoroughly con- 
tent. I confess candidly that I’m in 
luck. What an extravagance I had 
committed, in picking up that little boy 
and girl ! We were so tranquil, previ- 
ously, Homo and I! What business 
had they in my booth, the tatterdemal- 
ions? Didn’t I fondle them enough 
when they were brats ? Didn’t I drag 
them about enough with my breast- 
collar? A pretty salvage that — he 
atrociously ugly, she blind of both 
eyes I Did I drain sufficiently, on their 
behalf, the breast of famine? And 
they grow up, they make love ! Flirta- 
tions between cripples — that’s where 
we left them ! The toad and the mole — 
an idyl 1 And I had this in intimate 
proximity. It ought aU to finish by the 
hand of justice. The toad has talked 
politics; good. I’m free of him. 
When the wapentake came, I was a 
fool at first ; one can’t believe in good 
fortune; I thought that I didn’t see 
what I saw, that it was impossible, 
that it was a nightmare, that I was 
dreaming a farce. But no; nothing 
can be more real. You can turn it as 
you please. Gwynplaine is fair and 
softly in prison. It’s a touch of provi- 
dence. Thank you, fair lady! He 
was the monster, that, with the row he 
made, drew attention to my establish- 
ment and denounced my poor wolf! 
Gone away, the Gwynplaine! And 
here I am, disembarrassed of the two. 
From one pebble, two bumps. For 
Dea will die of it. When she sees 
Gwynplaine no more — she sees him, 
the idiot! — she wiU have no more 
reason for existing, and she will say: 
“What am I doing in this world?” 
And she will go off, she too ; a pleasant 


journey to her ! The devil take them 
both ! I’ve always hated them, those 
beings. Die, Dea! Ah, how glad I 
am ! 

II. 

WHAT HE DOES. 

He reached the Tadcaster Inn again. 

Six hours and a half sounded — half- 
past six, as the English say. Twilight 
had not quite begun. 

Master Hicless was on his door-step. 
His affrighted face had not succeeded, 
since the morning, in recomposing it- 
self. Alarm was stiU stamped upon it. 

So soon as ever he saw TJrsus at a 
distance : 

— W^ell ? cried he. 

— Well; what? 

— Is Gwynplaine coming back? It 
is high time. The public will soon ar- 
rive. Shall we have, this evening, the 
representation of “ The Man Who 
Laughs ? ” 

— The man who laughs, said TJrsus, 
that’s myself. 

And he looked at the innkeeper as 
he chuckled loudly. 

Then he mounted straight up to the 
first floor, opened the window close by 
the sign-board of the inn, stooped for- 
ward, stretched out his arm, balanced 
himself toward Gwynplaine’s handbiU, 
“ The Man Who Laughs,” and toward 
the panel whereon Chaos Conquered 
was displayed, unnailed the one, tore 
down the other, put the two boards 
under his arm, and came down the 
stairs again. 

. Master NTicless followed him with his 
eyes. 

— Why do you take them down ? 

TJrsus broke out into a second hearty 
laugh. 

— Why do you laugh ? the innkeeper 
went on. 

TJrsus answered ! 

— I am returning into private life. 


WHAT HE DOES. 


255 


Master Nicless understood, and gave 
directions to his lieutenant, the boy 
Govicum, to tell any one who might 
present himself, that there would be 
no performance, that evening. He re- 
moved from the door the cask-con- 
trivance for the money-taker, and put 
it into a corner of the drinking-room. 

A moment afterward, TJrsus mounted 
into the Green-Box. 

He placed the two boards in a comer, 
and entered into what he termed the 
women’s pavilion. 

Dea was sleeping. 

She was on her bed, fully dressed, 
with her bodice loosened, as in her 
siestas. 

Hear her, Yinos and Fibi — seated, 
one on a stool, and the other on the 
floor — were ruminating. 

notwithstanding the advanced hour, 
they had not put on their goddesses’ 
stocking-net — a sign of profound dis- 
couragement. They were still wrapped 
up in their waists of drugget and their 
skirts of coarse stuff. 

IJrsus looked steadily at Dea. 

— She is rehearsing for a longer 
sleep, murmured -he. 

He apostrophized Fibi and Yinos. 

— You understand, you two. There’s 
an end of the music. You may put 
your trumpets away in your drawer. 
You are right, not to have harnessed 
yourselves as deities. You are very 
ugly thus; but you have done right. 
Keep on your duster petticoats. Ho 
performance to-night. Hor to-morrow, 
nor the day after to-morrow, nor the 
day after that. Ho more Gwynplaine. 
Ho more Gwynplaine than there is on 
tlie palm of my hand. 

And again he looked earnestly at Dea. 

— What a blow this will be for her ! 
It will be like blowing out a candle. 

He puffed out his cheeks. 

— Pough ! — nothing more. 

He laughed a little dry laugh. 

— Gr'wynplaine out of the way is 


every thing out of the way. It will be 
as though I lost Homo. It will be 
worse. She will be more alone than 
any other. This sort of thing splashes 
more sadness over the blind, than over 
us. 

He went to the small window at the 
end. 

— How the days are lengthening! 
We see yet, at seven o’clock. How- 
ever, let’s light up the tallow. 

By aid of the tinder-box, he lighted 
the ceiling lantern of the Green-Box. 

He leaned over Dea. 

— She will take cold. You women, 
you have unlaced her too much. 
There is the French proverb : 

On est en avril, 

N’dte pas un fil 1 * 

He saw a pin shining on the floor, 
picked it up, and stuck it into his sleeve. 
Then he walked up and down the Gree:^- 
Box, gesticulating: 

— I am in full possession of my facul- 
ties. I am lucid, arch-lucid. I pro- 
nounce this occurrence quite correct, 
and I approve of what is taking place. 
When she wakes up. I’ll tell her of the 
incident just as it happened. There’ll 
be no long waiting for the catastrophe. 
Ho more Gwynplaine — good-night, 
Dea! How well arranged it all is. 
Gwynplaine in the prison ; Dea in the 
burial-ground! They’re going to be 
each other’s vis-a-vis ! Death’s dance ! 
Two destinies that reenter behind the 
scenes. Let’s pack up the costumes. 
Let’s buckle the cloak-bag. For, cloak- 
bag, read winding-sheet. These two 
creatures were wanted : Dea without 
eyes, Gwynplaine without face. Up 
yonder, the good God will restore light 
to Dea and beauty to Gwynplaine. 
Death is putting in order. All is well. 
Fibi, Yinos, hook up your tambourines 
on the nails. Y our talents for a row- 
de-dow are about to grow rusty, my 

* Till April be dead, 

Leave oflf no thread 1 


256 


by the KING’S COMMAND. 


beauties. There’ll be no more perform- 
ing, no more trumpeting. Chaos Con- 
quered is conquered. The Man "Who 
Laughs is done for. Tarantara is dead. 
This Dea sleeps all the time. She does 
well, too. In her place, I wouldn’t 
wake up. Bah ! she’ll soon be asleep 
again. Such a skylark as this soon 
dies. That’s what it is, to take up with 
politics. What a lesson ! and how gov- 
ernments are in the right of it 1 Gw^m- 
plaine to the sheriff ; Dea to the grave- 
digger ! That’s parallel. Instructive 
symmetry ! I hope the innkeeper has 
barricaded the door. We are going to 
die, this evening, among ourselves, all 
in the family. hTot I, nor Homo ; but 
Dea. For myself, I shall continue to 
have the caravan rolled along. I am 
identified with the meanderings of a 
vagabond life. I shall dismiss the two 
girls. I will not even retain one of 
them. I have a tendency to foolish- 
ness in old age. A female servant in 
the household of an old man is like 
bread on the table. I don’t wish for 
any temptation. It no longer suits my 
age. Turpe senilis amor. I will follow 
out my course, all alone with Homo. It 
is Homo who is going to be astonished. 
Where is Gwynplaine ? Where is Dea ? 
Old comrade, here we are together 
again 1 By the plague, I’m enchanted ! 
Their bucolics embarrassed me. Ah, 
this wretch of a Gwynplaine, who 
doesn’t even come back ! He leaves us 
in the lurch. That’s good. Now it’s 
Dea’s turn. It won’t be long. I want 
it to be finished off. I wouldn’t give a 
fillip on the tip of the devil’s nose to 
prevent her from dying! Dying, do you 
hear? Ah, she is waking ! 

Dea opened her eyelids; for many 
blind persons shut their eyes in sleep- 
ing. Her sweet face, in its ignorance, 
wore all its habitual brightness. 

— She smiles, murmured Ursus ; and 
I, I am laughing. All goes well. 

Dea called : 


— Fibi ! Vinos I it must be time for 
the performance. I fancy I must have 
slept a long time. Come and dress me ! 

Neither Fibi nor Vinos budged. 

Meanwhile TJrsus’s eye encountered, 
in Dea’s, the ineffable look of the blind. 
He shuddered. 

The two women, stupefied, looked to 
TJrsus. 

Ursus shouted out : " 

— You don’t see the public coming in ! 
Fibi, dress Dea ! Vinos, beat the drum ! 

Active obedience was Fibi. Passive 
was Vinos. They two, in themselves, 
personified submission. Their master, 
Ursus, had always been an enigma for 
them. Being never understood is a 
reason for being always obeyed. They 
thought simply that he was going out 
of his mind, and executed the order. 
Fibi took down the costume, and Vinos 
the drum. 

Fibi began dressing Dea. Ursus low- 
ered the curtain over the door of the 
women’s compartment, and continued, 
from behind it : 

— Look there, Gwynplaine ! the 
court-yard is already more than half 
filled with the crowd. They are jos- 
tling each other in the entrance- ways. 
What a crowd ! What do you say to 
Fibi and Vinos, who look as though 
they didn’t perceive it? How stupid 
they are, these strolling- women I What 
dulness is there in Egypt ! Don’t lift 
up the curtain. Have some regard for 
decency. Dea is dressing. 

He paused ; then all at once, this ex- 
clamation was heard : 

— How lovely Dea is ! 

It was the voice of Gwynplaine. Fibi 
and Vinos trembled and turned round. 
It was the voice of Gwynplaine, but in 
Ursus’s mouth. 

Ursus, by a sign through a gap in the 
door-curtain, forbade their being sur- 
prised. 

He went on, in Gwynplaine’s voice: 

— Angel ! 


WHAT HE DOES. 


257 


Then he replied, in Ursus’s voice : 

— Dea, an angel! You are mad, 
Gwynplaine. There is no mammifer- 
ous animal that flies, except the hat. 

And he added : 

— Stop, Gw jnplaine ; go and let Ho- 
mo loose. That will be more to tlie 
point. 

And he went down the back steps of 
the Green-Box very quickly, in Gwyn- 
plaine’s nimble style. Imitative scuflae, 
intended for Dea’s ear. 

In the court-yard he came upon the 
boy, made idle and inquisitive by all 
this adventure. 

— Spread out both your hands, said 
Ursus to him, in low tone. 

And he emptied into them a handful 
of pence. 

Govicum was deeply moved by such 
munificence. 

Ursus whispered in his ear ; 

— Boy, install yourself in the court ; 
jump, dance, beat against any thing, 
bawl, shout, whistle, coo, neigh, ap- 
plaud, stamp with your feet, burst out 
into laughter, break something ! 

Master Nicless, humiliated and vexed 
at seeing the people, who had come for 
“ The Man Who Laughs,” retrace their 
steps and stream oif to other booths in 
the fair-ground, had closed the door of 
the inn. He had even given up the 
serving out drinks for this evening, so 
as to avoid the nuisance of being asked 
questions ; and, in lack of occupation, 
as there was no performance, was look- 
ing down into the court, candle in 
hand, from the balcony above. Ursus, 
taking the precaution to pitch his voice 
between the parentheses made by the 
palms of his two hands adjusted to his 
mouth, cried out to him : 

— Master, do as your boy does ; yelp, 
scream, howl ! 

He went up again into the Green- 
Box, and said to the wolf 

— Speak as loud as you can ! 

And, raising his voice : 

17 


— The crowd is too great. I believe 
we are going to have a disturbed repre- 
sentation. 

Vinos, meanwhile was beating her 
drum. 

Ursus continued : 

— Dea is in costume. We shall be 
able to begin. I’m sorry that they have 
let in so many people. How thick they 
are I But look, Gwynplaine I What 
an ungovernable herd! I’ll bet that 
this is our biggest receipt. Go on, you 
hussies, both of you, to your music ! 
This way, Fibi, and take your clarion ! 
Good, Vinos, rattle away on your drum. 
Hit it till you scrape the skin ! Fibi, 
pose yourself as Fame. Young ladies, 
you’re too much covered up. Off with 
those dresses. Put on your gauze in 
place of that stuff. The public like us 
daintily gotten up. Let wise men thun- 
der — we’U have a dash of nonsense! 
Let’s be gay. And lay about you 
with desperate melodies I Peal, blow, 
crackle, flourish, thump ! What a 
crowd, my poor Gwynplaine ! 

He interrupted himself : 

— Gwynplaine, help me ! Let’s lower 
the panel down. 

In the mean time, he spread out his 
pocket-handkerchief. 

— But, first, let me bellow in my rag. 

And he blew his nose energetically, 
as a ventriloquist always ought to do. 

His handkerchief replaced in his 
pocket, he drew back the bolts con- 
nected with the pulleys, that made the 
ordinary screeching. The panel lowered 
itself. 

— Gwynplaine, it’s of no use to re- 
move the blind. Let’s keep the cur- 
tain as it is, until the performance be- 
gins. We shall not be by ourselves. 
Here, you two, come to the front, both 
of you. Music, young ladies ! Poum ! 
Poum! Poum! The audience is well 
composed. It is of the dregs of the 
people. Good heavens, what a heap of 
populace ! 


258 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


The two trollops, stupefied by the act 
of obedience, installed themselves in 
their accustomed places, at the two cor- 
ners of the lowered panel. 

Thereupon Ursus became extraordi- 
nary. He was no longer a man ; he was 
a crowd. Compelled to make fulness 
out of emptiness, he summoned his mar- 
vellous ventriloquism to his aid. All 
the orchestra of voices, human and ani- 
mal, that he had within him, rang out 
at once. He made himself legion. Any 
one, with closed eyes, might have fan- 
cied himself in some public place, on a 
day of festival or of riot. The whirl- 
wind of stammerings and of noises, that 
came forth from IJrsus, sang, bayed, 
talked, coughed, spat, sneezed, took 
snufi*, held dialogues, put questions and 
gave answers — and all this simulta- 
neously. The rough-drawn syllables 
fitted one into another. In this court- 
yard where there was nothing, men, 
and women, and children, were heard. 
There was the distinct confusion of ap- 
plause. And, athwart this din, strange 
discords went meandering as in a mist, 
duckings of birds, spittings of cats, 
cries of infants at the breast. The 
hoarseness of the drunken man could 
be distinguished. Dogs underfoot 
growled out their disquiet. The voices 
came from far and from near, from 
above and from below, from the front 
seats and from the back. The whole 
together was a sound ; the detail was 
a cry. Ursus thumped with his fist, 
kicked with his foot, threw his voice 
out to the farther end of the court, then 
made it come out of the ground. It 
was stormy and familiar. He passed 
from murmur to noise, from noise to 
tumult, from tumult to tempest. He 
was himself and all. Soliloquist and 
polyglottist. Just as there is illusion 
for the eye, there is illusion for the ear. 
What Proteus did for the look, Ursus 
did for the hearing. Nothing §o won- 
derful as this fac-simile of the multi- 


tude. Prom time to time, he drew 
aside the curtain of the women’s apart- 
ment, and looked at Dea. Dea was 
listening. 

On his side in the court-yard, the boy 
was carrying it with high hand. 

Vinos and Fibi blew conscientiously in- 
to the trumpets, and excited themselves 
upon the tambourines. Master Nicless, 
the sole spectator, like them, explained 
it to himself by Ursus being mad, 
which, besides, was but adding a som- 
bre detail to his melancholy. The brave 
innkeeper muttered : “ What a row I ” 
He was as serious as a person who re- 
calls to himself that there are laws. 

Govicum, charmed to contribute tow- 
ard disorder, exerted himself almost 
as much as Ursus. It amused him ; be- 
sides, he gained his pennies. 

Homo was pensive. 

With his hurly-burly, Ursus mingled 
words : 

— It is as usual, Gwynplaine, there’s 
a cabal; our rivals are undermining 
our success. Hooting is what seasons 
triumph. And then these folks here 
are too numerous. They are ill at ease. 
A neighbor’s elbow-jomts do not pro- 
mote good-will. It’s to be hoped that 
they won’t break the benches. We 
are about to become victims to a mad- 
brained population. Ah I if our friend 
Tom- Jim- Jack were there I But he 
does not come any more. Look at all 
those heads, one above the other. Those, 
who are standing up, do not seem to be 
well satisfied, although to remain stand- 
ing up, according to Galien, is a move- 
ment which that great man calls “ the 
tonic movement.” We’ll cut the per- 
formance short. As there is nothing 
but Chaos Conquered on, the bills, we 
will not play TJrsus Rursus. That’s at 
any rate something gained. What an 
uproar I O blind turbulence of the 
masses ! They will be doing us some 
damage! But it can’t go on thus. Wo 
shouldn’t vbe able to play. Not a word 


WHAT HE DOES. 


259 


of the piece could be heard. I’m going 
to harangue them. Gwjnplaine, draw 
the blind a little aside. Citizens — 

Here Ursus cried to himself, in a fe- 
verish and sharp voice : 

— Down with the old fellow ! 

And he went on, in his own proper 
voice : 

— I believe the people are insulting 
me. Cicero wms right ; plebs^fex urhis. 
It doesn’t matter ; let’s admonish the 
mob. I shall have much trouble to 
make myself heard. I will speak, never- 
theless. Man, do your duty! Gwyn- 
plaine, look at that hag gnashing her 
teeth down there ! 

Ursus made a pause, into which he 
threw a gnashing of teeth. Homo, pro- 
voked, added a second one, and Govi- 
cum a third. 

Ursus went on : 

— The women are worse than the 
men. By no means a propitious mo- 
ment. It’s all the same ; let’s try the 
effect of a speech. To be eloquent is 
always in season. Listen to this, Gwyn- 
plaine, an insinuating exordium. — Lady- 
citizens and gentlemen-citizens, it is I 
who am the bear. I take off my head 
to address you. I humbly ask for si- 
lence. 

Ursus gave out this cry to the crowd : 

— Grumphll ! 

And continued : 

— I respect my audience. Grumphll 
is an exclamation, like any other. Wel- 
come, O population alive with vermin ! 
I have no doubt that you are of the 
scum, all of you. That does not dimin- 
ish my esteem. Deliberate esteem. I 
have the most profound reverence for 
the worthy bullies, who honor me with 
their patronage. There are deformed 
beings among you, and I take no offence 
at it. Halting gentlemen and gentle- 
men humpbacks are to be found in na- 
ture. The camel bunches out ; the bison 
is puffed up in the back; the badger 
has his left legs shorter than his right ; 


the fact is settled by Aristotle in his 
treatise on the walking of animals. 
Those among you, who have two shirts, 
have one upon your back, and the other 
at the pawnbroker’s. I know that is 
so. Albuquerque pledged his mustache, 
and St. Denis his aureole. The Jews 
made advances, even on the aureole. 
Great examples. To have debts is to 
have something. In you, I reverence 
ragamuffins. 

Here, Ursus cut himself short by this 
interruption, in deep bass : 

— Stupid donkey ! 

And he answered in his own most 
polished accent: 

— Agreed. I am a learned man. I 
make my excuses for it as well as I can. 
I scorn knowledge scientifically. Igno- 
rance is a reality, on which one is nour- 
ished ; knowledge is a reality, on which 
one starves. For the most part, we are 
forced to make choice : to be learned, 
and grow thin ; to browse, and be an 
ass. O citizens, browse! Knowledge 
isn’t worth a mouthful of any thing 
good. I would rather eat a sirloin of 
beef, than know that its muscle is called 
p8oas. I have but one single merit. 
That is a dry eye. Such as you see me, 
I have never wept. It must be said, 
though, that I have never been satis- 
fied. Hever satisfied. Hot even with 
myself. I despise myself. But, I sub- 
mit this to the members of the opposi- 
tion here present — if Ursus is only a 
man of learning, Gwynplaine is an art- 
ist. 

He sniffled afresh : 

— Grumphll ! 

And he resumed : 

— Grumphll again ! That’s an objec- 
tion. Nevertheless, I proceed. And 
Gwynplaine, O gentlemen and ladies, 
has beside him another artist, that dis- 
tinguished and hairy personage who 
accompanies us, the Lord Homo, for- 
merly a wild dog, now a civilized wolf, 
and faithful subj ect of her Maj esty. Ho- 


260 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


mo is a mimic, of talents deep-seated 
and superior. Be attentive and collect- 
ed. You are about to see Homo play 
presently, as well as Gwynplaine ; and 
art must be honored. That befits great 
nations. Are you men of the woods ? 
I assent to it. In that case, Byl'tm sint 
consule dignm. Two artists are well 
worth one consul. Good. Some one 
has thrown a cabbage-stalk at me. But 
it didn’t hit me. It won’t hinder me 
from speaking. On the contrary, avoid- 
ed danger is loquacious. Garrula peri- 
cula^ says Juvenal. People ! there are 
drunken men among you ; drunken 
women also. It’s all right. The men 
are tainted; the women are hideous. 
You have all sorts of excellent reasons 
for cramming yourselves in here upon 
the drinking-room benches — want of 
occupation, idleness, pausing between 
two robberies, porter, ale, stout, malt, 
brandy, gin, and the attraction of one 
sex to the other sex. Wondrous well ! 
A mind, with a turn for fooling, would 
have ^ a fair field here. But I abstain. 
Boldness — so be it. Still, there must 
be some reticence in an orgy. You are 
gay, but obstreperous. You imitate 
notably the outcries of beasts ; but 
what would you say if, when you were 
talking love with a lady in a room, I 
were to pass my time in barking close 
to you? It would annoy you. Very 
well, then, this annoys us. I authorize 
you to hold your tongues. Art is quite 
as respectable as debauch. I speak to 
you in plain terms. 

He addressed himself : 

— Plague strangle you, with your 
eyebrows like ears of rye ! 

And he replied : 

— Jlonorable sirs, let us leave the 
ears of rye in peace. It is impious to 
do violence to vegetables, for the pur- 
pose of tracing in them a resemblance 
human or animal. Besides, the plague 
doesn’t strangle. A false metaphor. 
For goodness’ sake, keep silence. Per- 


mit me to teU you, that you are lacking 
a little in the majesty that characterizes 
the true English gentleman ! I declare 
positively that those among you, who 
have shoes through which their toes 
have passed, take advantage thereof in 
putting their feet upon the shoulders 
of the spectators in front of them, which 
give the ladies occasion for remarking 
that soles don’t always burst out at the 
point where is placed the head of the 
metatarsal bones. Show your feet a 
little less, and your hands a little more. 
I perceive hence certain knaves, who 
are plunging their ingenious claws into 
the fobs of their imbecile neighbors. 
Dear pickpockets, decency ! Box your 
neighbor’s ears, if you please; but don’t 
rob him. You’ll irritate folks much less 
by giving them a black eye, than by 
cribbing their pence. Damage noses; 
very well. The cit holds his money 
dearer than his beauty. For the rest, 
accept my sympathy. I have no pre- 
tention to throw blame on sharpers. 
Evil exists. Every one endures it; 
every one does it. Ho one is exempt 
from the vermin of his sins. I speak 
of that alone. Have we not, all, our 
itchings ? God scratches himself on 
the devil’s spot. I myself have com- 
mitted faults. Plaudite^ cives ! 

IJrsus executed a long groan, which 
he overpowered with these final words : 

— My lords and, gentlemen, I see that 
my discourse has had the luck to dis 
please you. I take leave of your boot- 
ings for a moment. I am now about 
to put on my head again, and the per- 
formance will begin. 

He abandoned the oratorical accent, 
for the intimate tone : 

— Let us cl ose the curtain again. Let 
me take breath. I have been melliflu- 
ous, I have spoken well. I have called 
them “my lords and gentlemen.” Vel- 
vety language, but thrown away. 
What do you say of all this debauched 
people, Gwynplaine? How easy it is 


WHAT HE DOES. 


261 


to account for the ills that England has 
suffered, for forty years, through the 
passions of these hitter and malignant 
spirits ! The English of otljer days 
were warlike ; these are saddened and 
enlightened, and take a pride in de- 
spising the laws and refusing to recog- 
nize the -royal authority. I have done 
all that human eloquence could do. I 
have lavished metonymies upon them, 
graceful as the flowered cheek of adoles- 
cence. Are they softened ? I doubt it. 
What can be expected of a people that 
eats so extraordinarily, and that stuffs 
itself up with tobacco to such a degree, 
that in this country men of letters, 
themselves often compose their works 
with a pipe in their mouths ? It’s all the 
same. Let’s play the piece ! 

The rings of the curtain were heard 
sliding along the rod. The drumming 
of the gypsies ceased. Ursus unhooked 
his hurdy-gurdy, played his prelude, 
said in low tone, “ Why, how mysteri- 
ous this is, Gwynplaine ! ” and then tum- 
bled upside down with the wolf. 

However, at the same time with the 
hurdy-gurdy, he had taken down from 
its nail a very shaggy wig that he owned, 
and had thrown it upon the floor, in a 
corner within his reach. 

The representation of Chaos Conquer- 
ed took place almost as usual, minus 
the effects of blue light and magical illu- 
mination. The wolf played his part in 
good faith. At the proper moment, 
Dea made her appearance, and evoked 
Gwynplaine with her divine and trem- 
ulous voice. She stretched out her arm, 
groping for his head. 

IJrsus pounced upon the wig, shook 
it into disorder, put it on, and advanced 
softly, holding his breath, so that his 
bristling head was under Dea’s hand. 

Then, summoning up all his skill and 
imitating Gwynplaine’ s voice, he sang, 
with an ineffable expression of love, the 
monster’s reply to the appeal of the 
spirit. 


The imitation was so perfect that, 
this time again, the two assistant wo- 
men looked for Gwynplaine with their 
eyes, frightened at hearing wdthout see- 
ing him. 

Govicum, marvelling, stamped with 
his feet, applauded, clapped his hands, 
produced an Olympian hubbub, and 
laughe'd, by himself alone, like a troop 
of gods. This boy, let it be said, dis- 
played a rare talent for playing the 
spectator. 

Fibi and Vinos, automatons whose 
springs were moved by Ursus, gave out 
the habitual hurly-burly of instruments 
made up of brass and ass’s skin, that 
marked the close of the performance, 
and accompanied the departure of the 
public. 

Ursus got up, in a sweat. 

He whispered to Homo : — You under- 
stand that it was a case of saving time. 
I believe that we have succeeded. I 
got out of it pretty well, I w^ho had a 
right to be well-nigh overcome. Gwyn- 
plaine * may still come back, between 
the present time and to-morrow. It 
was useless to kill Dea outright. I am 
explaining it all to you. 

He took off his wig and wiped his 
brow. 

— I am a ventriloquist of genius, 
murmured he. What talent I have ! I 
have equalled Brabant, the ventrilo- 
quist of the King of France, Francis 1. 
Dea is convinced that Gwynplaine is 
here. 

— Ursus, said Dea, wdicre is Gwyn- 
plaine ? 

Ursus turned round, with a start. 

Dea had remained in the background 
of the theatre, standing up under the 
lantern that hung from the roof. She 
was pale, with a ghostly pallor. 

She resumed, wdth an ineffable smile 
of despair : 

— I know it. He has left us. He is 
gone. Well was I aware that he had 
wings. 


262 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


And, raising her transparent eyes to 
the Infinite, she added : 

— When will it be my turn? 

III. 

COMPLICATIONS. 

Uesus was stupefied. 

He had not brought about an illu- 
sion. 

Was his ventriloquism in fault ? No, 
assuredly. He had succeeded in deceiv- 
ing Fibi and Yinos, who had eyes ; and 
not iu deceiving Dea, who was blind. 
It was that the eyeballs only of Fibi and 
Yinos were lucid, while in Dea it was 
the heart that saw. 

He had not a word to reply. And he 
thought within himself : Bos in lingua, 
Man, tongue-tied, has an ox on his 
tongue. 

In mixed emotions, humiliation is the 
first sentiment that crops out. Ursus 
dreamed. 

— I have frittered away my ono- 
matopoeias. 

And, like every dreamer who is driv- 
en into a corner, he abused himself : 

^ — Complete break-down I I have 
exhausted imitative harmony to no pur- 
pose whatever. But "what will become 
of us now ? 

He looked at Dea. She was silent ; 
growing more and more pale, and with- 
out any movement. Her eye was fixed 
and lost in space. 

An ijicident happened in the nick of 
time. 

Ursus saw Master Nicless in the court- 
yard, candle in hand, making signs to 
him. 

Master Nicless had not assisted at the 
close of the quasi-phantom comedy 
played by Ursus. That was because 
some one had knocked at the inn-door. 
Master Nicless had gone to open it. 
Twice there had been a knock, which 
made two eclipses of Master Nicless. 
Ursus, absorbed in his hundred-voiced 
monologue, had not noticed it. 


Upon the mute appear of Master Nic- 
less, Ursus went down. 

He drew near the innkeeper. 

Ursus put his finger upon his lip. 

Master Nicless put his finger upon 
his lip. 

The two looked at each other, thus. 

Each of them seemed to say to the 
other : 

— Let’s talk; but let’s hold our 
tongues. 

The innkeeper opened silently the 
door of the low-pitched room. Master 
Nicless entered ; Ursus entered. There 
was no one but they two. The outlook 
toward the street, Avindow and shutter, 
was closed. 

The innkeeper pushed behind him the 
door that opened on the court ; it was 
shut in the face of Govicum, inquisitive. 

Master Nicless put the candle on a 
table. 

A dialogue began; in low tone, al- 
most a whisper. 

— Master Ursus. . . 

— Master Nicless ? 

— I have it at last. 

— Bah! 

— You desired to make the poor 
blind girl believe that all this -was as 
usual. 

— There’s no law against ventrilo- 
quism. 

— You are clever. 

— No. 

— It’s astounding to what a point 
you do what you want to do. 

— No, I tell you. 

— Notv, I’ve something to say to you. 

— Is it politics ? 

— I don’t know. 

— Because I would not listen. 

— Look here. While you were play- 
ing both piece and public, all by your- 
self, somebody was knocking at the 
inn-door. 

— Somebody knocked at the door ? 

— Yes. 

— I don’t like that. 


MiENIBUS SUEDIS CAMPANA MUTA. 


— Kor do 1. 

— And then ? 

— And then I opened it. 

— Who was it that knocked ? 

— Some one, who spoke to me. 

— What did he say ? 

— I listened to him. 

— What answer did you give him ? 

— None at all. I came back to see 
you play. 

— And. . .? 

— Some one knocked a second time. 

— Who ? The same person ? 

— No ; another one. 

— Still somebody who spoke to you ? 

— Somebody who said nothing to me. 

— I like him better. 

— I don’t. 

— Explain yourself, Master Nicless. 

— Guess who knocked the first time. 

— I haven’t time to be (Edipus. 

— It was the master of tlie circus. 

— Close by ? 

— Close by. 

— Where there is all that cracked 
music ? 

— Cracked. 

— WeU? 

— Well, Master Ursus, he makes you 
an ofifer. 

— An offer ? 

— An offer. 

— Why? 

— For reasons. 

— You have an advantage over me, 
Master Nicless, in that you just now 
guessed my enigma, and that I, at this 
present moment, can’t comprehend 
yours. 

— The master of the circus has com- 
missioned me tp tell you that he saw 
the squad of police pass this morning, 
and that he, the master of the circus, 
being* desirous to prove to you that he 
is your friend, offers to buy of you, for 
fifty pounds sterling money down, your 
caravan the Green -Box, your two 
horses, your trumpets with the women 
who blow them, your piece with the 


263 

blind girl who sings in it, your wolf, 
and you yourself with it all. 

Ursus smiled haughtily. 

— Master of the Tadcaster Inn, you 
will tell the master of the circus that 
Gwynplaine is coming back. 

The innkeeper took up from a chair 
something in the dark, and turned tow- 
ard Ursus with his two arms held up, so 
as to let Ursus take from one of his hands 
a cloak, and from the other a leather col- 
lar, a felt hat, and a hooded mantle. 

And Master Nicless said : 

— The man who knocked the second 
time, and who was one of the police, 
and who came in and went out without 
speaking a word, brought this. 

Ursus recognized Gwynplaine’s leath- 
er collar, mantle, hat, and cloak. . 

ly. 

M^XIBUS SURDIS CAMPANA MUTA. 

Ursus passed his fingers over the felt 
of the hat, the cloth of the cloak, the 
stuff of the mantle, the leather of tl^e 
collar ; couldn’t entertain any doubt as 
to these cast-off clothes; and Avith a 
quick and imperious gesture, without 
saying a word, pointed Master Nicless 
to the inn-door. 

Master Nicless opened it. 

Ursus rushed out of the tavern. 

Master Nicless followed him with his 
eyes, and saw Ursus running as fast as 
his old legs would let him, in the direc- 
tion taken in the morning by the 
wapentake who carried off Gwyn- 
plaine. A quarter of an hour later, 
Ursus, out of breath, reached the little 
street in which was the wicket-gate of 
Southwark jail, and in which he had 
already passed so many hours on the 
lookout. 

This narrow street had no need of 
midnight, to be deserted. But, gloomy 
by day, by night it was disquieting. 
After a certain hour, no one trusted 
himself there. It seemed as though 
there might be an apprehension of the 


2G4 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


two walls drawing nearer together, and 
a fear of being crushed in the embrace, 
if a fancy to embrace each other should 
take hold of the prison and the ceme- 
tery. Nocturnal effects these. The 
truncated willows of the little street 
Vauvert, in Paris, had this same sort 
of evil repute. It was pretended that 
at night these stumps of trees changed 
themselves into huge hands, and seized 
upon the passers-hy. 

The people of Southwark, as we have 
said, avoided by instinct this street, be- 
tween jail and burial-ground. Former- 
ly, it had been harre'd at night by an 
iron chain. -Altogether useless this ; 
the best chain for closing up this street 
was the fear that it wrought. 

TJl’sus entered it resolutely. 

What idea had he ? None. 

He came into this street, as the place 
for inquiries. Was he going to knock 
at the prison-door ? Certainly not. 
This fearful and vain expedient did not 
enter into his brain. Trying to get in 
there, to ask for information! What 
madness ! Prisons no more open them- 
selves to him who wants to enter, than 
to him who wants to go out. Their 
hinges do hut revolve upon the law. 
Ursus was aware of this. What, then, 
was his purpose in this street ? To see. 
See what ? Nothing. He did not know 
what. What he could. To find him- 
self again opposite the door, through 
which Gwynplainehad disappeared, was 
in itself something already. Sometimes, 
the blackest and the roughest wall can 
speak, and a glimmer of light may 
peer from between its stones. Out 
from a close-set and darkened mass, a 
vague brightness not unfrequently trans- 
udes and is detached. To examine 
the envelope of a fact is to he in a good 
place for watching. We all have an 
instinct within us, that prompts us to 
leave the least possible thickness be- 
tween ourselves and the fact that inter- 
ests us. That is why Ursus returned 


to the lane, wherein was the low-pitehed 
entrance to the strong house. 

At the moment when he entered the 
lane, he heard the stroke of a bell ; then 
a second. 

— What, thought he, can it be mid- 
night already ? 

Mechanically, he began to count. 

— Three, four, five. 

He mused : 

— How the strokes of this beU are 
spun out ! How slow they are ! Six, seven. 

And he made this remark : 

— What lamentable sounds ! — Eight, 
nine. — Ah, the simplest thing in the 
world I A clock is saddened by being 
in a prison ! — Ten. — And then the cem 
etery is there. This bell sounds the houi 
for the living, and eternity for the dead. 
— Eleven. — Alas ! to sound an hour foi 
him, who is not at liberty, is also to 
sound an eternity ! — Twelve! 

He stopped. 

— Yes, it is midnight. 

The bell sounded a thirteenth stroke. 

Ursus shuddered. 

— Thirteen ! 

There was a fourteenth stroke. Then 
a fifteenth. 

— What can that mean ? 

The strokes continued at long inter- 
vals. Ursus listened. 

— It is not the bell of a clock. It is 
the bell muta. Besides, I said: “How 
long midnight is sounding ! ” This bell 
does not sound at all ; it tolls. What is 
passing here, that is sinister ? 

Every prison, formerly, like every 
monastery, had its bell, termed muta, 
and reserved for sad occasions. The 
muta — the dumb one — was a bell of 
very Iotv tone, that had the air of doing 
all it could, so as not to be heal’d. 

Ursus had regained the corner conve- 
nient for the lookout, whence he had 
been enabled to keep watch upon the 
prison during a great part of the day. 

The tellings followed each other, at a 
lugubrious distance apart. 


MINIBUS SUEDIS OAMPANA MUTA. 


A knell notes a loathsome punctua- 
tion upon space. It marks funereal par- 
agraphs in everybody’s lucubrations. 
The knelling of a bell is like the throat- 
rattle in a man. Notification of agony. 
If, in houses here and there, in the neigh- 
borhood of this tolling bell, there should 
be reveries that fluctuate and pause, 
the knell cuts them into specific frag- 
ments. Floating reverie is, as it were, 
a refuge. A certain something of the 
difltiise in anguish leaves room for a 
ray of hope to penetrate; the knell 
particularizes and crushes. It puts an 
end to diftusiou; and, in the trouble 
wherein inquietude would fain hover 
in suspense, it brings the headlong fall 
to a point. A knell speaks to every 
one in the sense of his sorrow or his 
alarm. A tragic bell — this is addressed 
to you. A warning. Nothing so som- 
bre as a monologue, whereon this ca- 
dence falls. The evenly-measured re- 
turns indicate a purpose. What is that 
hammer, the bell, forging upon that 
anvil, the thought? 

Ursus counted confusedly the toUings 
of the knell, although he had no object 
in so doing. Feeling that he was on 
slippery ground, he made eflferts not 
to lose himself in conjectures. Con- 
jectures are an inclined plane, whereon 
we go uselessly too far. But mean- 
time, what did this bell mean ? 

He peered into the darkness, at 
the spot where he knew that the prison- 
door was situated. 

All at once, at this very spot, which 
formed a sort of black hole, there was 
a redness. This redness grew larger, 
and became a brightness. 

There was nothing vague in this red- 
ness. It suddenly assumed form and 
had angles. The jail-door had turned 
upon its hinges. The redness marked 
out its arch and its casings. 

It was rather a yawning than an 
opening. A prison does not open ; it 
yawns. With ennui, perhaps. 


205 

The wicket-gate let out a man with a 
torch in his hand. 

The bell did not cease tolling. Ursus 
felt that he was doubly in abeyance. 
He watched intently — ^his ear on tlie 
knell, his eye on the torch. 

Following this man, the door, which 
was only ajar, opened entirely, and 
gave issue to two other men, then to 
a fourth. This fourth was the wapen- 
take, visible by the light of the torch. 
He had his iron staff in his hand. 

Emerging from beneath the wicket, 
behind the wapentake, in order, two 
by two, with the stiffness of a series of 
marching posts, came forth a number 
of silent men. 

This nocturnal retinue traversed the 
low doorway couple by couple, like 
the pairs in a procession of penitents, 
without break in its continuity, with lu- 
gubrious care to make no noise, gravely, 
almost gently. With just such precau- 
tion does a serpent issue from its hole. 

The torch threw the profiles and the 
attitudes into relief. Fierce profiles, 
mournful attitudes. 

Ursus recognized all the counte- 
nances of the police, who had carried 
off Gwynplaine in the morning. 

There was no doubt. They were the 
same. They were reappearing ; Gwyn- 
plaine also was evidently about to reap- 
pear. 

They had brought him there ; they 
would take him back again. 

It was clear. 

Ursus’s eyeball redoubled its in- 
tensity of gaze. W ould they set Gwyn- 
plaine at liberty ? 

The double file of the police trickled 
out from the low-arched way, very 
slowly, and as it were drop by drop. 
The bell, that never ceased, seemed to 
mark the step for them. On leaving 
the prison, the train, showing their 
backs to Ursus, turned to the right in 
the bend of the street opposite to tliat 
where he was posted. 


266 


BY. THE KING’S COMMAND. 


A second torch shone out through 
the wicket-gate. 

This indicated the close of the pro- 
cession. 

Ursus was about to see what they 
were bringing out. The prisoner. The 
man. 

Ursus was about to see Gwynplainel 

What they were bringing out ap- 
peared. It was a bier. 

Four men were carrying a bier, cov- 
ered with a black cloth. 

Behind them came a man with a 
shovel on his shoulder. 

A third lighted torch, held by a per- 
sonage reading from a book, who was 
of course a chaplain, closed the train ! 

The bier took its place in the file, 
behind the police who had turned to 
the right. 

At the same moment the head of the 
retinue stopped. Ursus heard the 
grinding noise of a key. 

Opposite the prison, in the low wall 
that bounded the other side of the 
street, a second opening of a door was 
made distinct by a torch that passed 
through it. 

This door, on which a death’s-head 
might be distinguished, was the door 
of the burial-ground. 

The wapentake entered by this open- 
ing; then the men; then the second 
torch, after the first. The train dimin- 
ished, like the reptile reentering his 
hole. The entire file of the police pen- 
etrated that other gloom that was be- 
yond that other door ; then the bier ; 
then the man of the shovel ; then the 
chaplain with his torch and his book ; 
and the door was closed again. 

There was nothing any longer, save a 
gleam of light over a wall. 

It was without doubt the chaplain and 
the grave-digger, who were casting on 
the coffin — the one his verses of prayer, 
the other his shovelfuls of earth. 

The whispering ceased ; the duU 
thuds ceased. 


There was a movement. The torches 
shone ; the wapentake repassed through 
the reopened door of the cemetery, 
holding his staff upright ; the chaplain 
came back with his book ; the grave- 
digger with his shovel ; the procession 
reappeared, without the coffin ; the 
double file of men made again the same 
passage between ^the two doors, wdth 
the same taciturnity, and in reversed 
order; the door of the cemetery was 
shut again ; the door of the prison was 
reopened; the sepulchral arch of the 
wicket-gate defined itself in the glim- 
mering light ; the darkness of the cor- 
ridor became dimly visible ; the pro- 
found and dense obscurity of the jail 
offered itself again to the look ; and all 
this vision reentered into all this gloom. 

The knell died out. Silence shut it- 
self down close — the sinister lock of 
darkness I 

An apparition swooned away ! It "was 
only that. 

A passing-by of spectres, that van- 
ishes ! ■ 

Coincidences, that draw together lo- 
gically, end in the building up of some- 
thing that resembles evidence. That 
fatal fact — a coffin borne to earth — add- 
ed itself, or let us rather say, adjusted 
itself, to Gwynplaine arrested, to the 
silent manner of his arrest, to his 
clothes brought back by one of the po- 
lice, to the kneU of the prison whither 
he was conducted. 

— He is dead, cried Ursus. 

He fell down, in sitting posture, on a 
mile-stone. 

— Dead! They have killed himl 
Gwynplaine ! My child ! My son ! 

And he broke out into sobs. 

V. 

STATE EEASONS WORK ON A SMALL, AS 
ON A LARGE SCALE. 

Ursus — ^he had boasted of it, alas ! — 
had never wept. The reservoir of tears 
was fall. Such a plenitude — wherein, 


267 


STATE EEASONS, ETC. 


drop by drop, sorrow by sorrow, is ac- 
cumulated all a long existence — does 
not empty itself in a moment. TJrsus 
sobbed a long time. 

The first tear is a tapping. He wept 
over Gwynplaine, over Hea, over him- 
self, TJrsus, over Homo. He wept like 
a child. He wept like an old man. He 
wept over all at which he had laughed. 
He payed off back debts. Man’s right 
to tears is never out of date. 

For the rest, the dead body that had 
been committed to earth was Hard- 
quanonne ; but TJrsus was not bound 
to know it. 

Several hours slipped away. 

The day began to break ; the pale 
shimmer of morning spread itself forth, 
vaguely streaked with shadows, over 
the bowling-green. The dawn blanched 
the front of the Tadcaster Inn. Mas- 
ter Nicless had not been to bed ; for 
the same fact often brings about sleep- 
lessness in several quarters. 

Catastrophes radiate in every direc- 
tion. Throw a stone into the water, 
and count the splashes ! 

. Master Uicless felt himself hit. It is 
very disagreeable to have things hap- 
pening under your roof. Master Nic- 
less, by no means reassured and fore- 
seeing complications, thought it over. 
He regretted having taken “ those peo- 
ple ” in. — If he had but known ! — They 
will end by getting him into some 
scrape. — How turn them out at once ? — 
He had given TJrsus a lease. — What 
good luck, if he were quit of it ! — What 
to do, to drive them off? 

Suddenly, at the inn-door, there was 
one of those thundering raps that, in 
England, announce “ somebody.” The 
gamut of door-knocks corresponds to 
the hierarchical scale. 

It was not quite a lord’s knock ; but 
it was a magistrate’s. 

The innkeeper, all in a tremble, par- 
tially opened the small casement in the 
door. 


A magistrate, in fact, it was. Master 
Hicless saw at his door, in the dim 
light, a group of the police, at whose 
head stood out two men, one of whom 
was the justice of the quorum. 

Master Nicless had seen the justice 
of the quorum in the morning, and rec- 
ognized him. 

He did not recognize the other man. 

He was a fat gentleman, with a wax- 
colored complexion, in a common wig, 
and a travelling-cape. 

Master Nicless was greatly in awe of 
the former of these personages, the jus- 
tice of the quorum. If Master Hicless 
had been of the court, he would have 
stood in greater fear of the latter — for 
he was Barkilphedro. 

One of the men of the group thumped 
a second time on the door, violently. 

The innkeeper, with the heavy sweat 
of anxiety on his brow, opened it. 

The justice of the quorum — ^in the 
tone of a man who has the police under 
him, and is up to all that personally 
concerns vagabonds — raised his voice, 
and asked sharply : 

— Master TJrsus ? 

— It is here, your honor. 

— I know that, said the justice. 

— Without doubt, your honor. 

— Let him come here. 

— Tour honor, he is not in. 

— Where is he ? 

— I don’t know. 

— How’s that ? 

— He has not come back. 

— Did he go out so very early, then ? 

— Ho ; but he went out very late. 

— These vagabonds ! exclaimed the 
justice. 

— Your honor, said Master Hicless, 
meekly, here he is ! 

TJrsus, in fact, had just appeared at a 
turn of the wall. He reached the inn. 
He had passed almost the whole night 
between the jail where at mid-day he 
had seen Gwynplaine go in, and the 
burial-ground where at midnight he had 


268 


BY TIIE KING’S COMMAND. 


heard the grave filled up. He was pale, 
with a double pallor ; that of his afflic- 
tion, and that of the twilight. 

The dawning day, which is light in 
its chrysalis state, blends with forms — 
even those that are in movement — some- 
thing of the indistinctness of night. 
Ursus, wan and shadowy and walking 
slowly, resembled a figure in a dream. 

In the sullen distraction produced by 
acute siififering, he had gone off from 
the inn bareheaded.. lie had not even 
noticed that he had no hat. His few 
gray hairs fluttered in the wind. His 
opened eyes did not appear to be look- 
ing. Awake, a man is often asleep; 
just so it happens that, when asleep, 
we may be awalie. Ursus had the air 
of a madman. 

— Master Ursus, cried the innkeeper, 
this way ! Their honors want to speak 
to you. 

Master Hicless, solely anxious to 
soften down tlie incident, let out this* 
plural, and at the same time would have 
withheld it. “ Their honors ” was re- 
spectful toward the group, but might 
jar perhaps upon the head of it, thus 
confounded with his subordinates, 

Ursus gave such a start as a man 
might give, on being tumbled out of a 
bed whereon he was sound asleep. 

— YThat’s the matter? said he. 

And he saw the police, and, at the 
head of the police, the magistrate. 

A new and severe shock for him. 

A while ago, the wapentake ; now, 
the justice of the quorum. The one 
seemed to throw him over to the other. 
There are old legends, such as tins, con- 
cerning reefs. 

The justice of the quorum signed to 
him to enter the tavern. 

Ursus obeyed. 

Govicum, who was just up and was 
sweeping out the room, stopped short, 
got into a corner behind the tables, kept 
his broom quiet, and held his breath. He 
thrust a hand into his hair and scratched 


it at random, which indicated attention 
to what may happen. 

The justice of the quorum seated 
himself on a bench, before a table; 
Barkilphedro took a chair. Ursus and 
Master Hicless remained standing. The 
officers of police, left outside, grouped 
themselves before the reclosed door. 

The justice of the quorum fixed his 
legal eyeball upon Ursus, and said : 

— You have a wolf. 

Ursus answered : 

— Not exactly so. 

— You have a wolf, resumed the jus- 
tice, emphasizing “ wolf ” with a deci- 
sive accent. 

Ursus replied : 

— That is . . . 

And he remained silent. 

— Misdemeanor, the justice went on. 

Ursus hazarded this bit of pleading : 

— He is my servant. 

The justice placed his hand flat on the 
table, with his five fingers spread out — 
a very striking gesture of authority. 

— Mountebank, to-morrow, by this 
hour, you and your wolf must have 
quitted England. Otherwise, the wolf 
will be seized, led to the court of rec- 
ords, and killed. 

Ursus thought : — Continuation of as- 
sassinations. — But he didn’t breathe a 
word, and contented himself with trem- 
bling in aU his limbs. 

— You hear ? said the justice. 

— Ursus affirmed, by bowing his 
head. 

The justice persisted : 

— Killed. 

There was silence. 

— Strangled, or drowned. 

The justice of the quorum looked at 
Ursus. 

— And yourself in prison. 

Ursus murmured : 

• — Judge! . . . 

— Be gone before to-morrow morn- 
ing. If not, such is the order. 

— J udge ! . . . 


STATE REASONS, ETC. 


— What ? 

— Must we leave England, he and I? 

— Yes. 

— To-day ? 

— To-day. 

— How to do it ? 

Master Hicless was happy. This ma- 
gistrate, whom ho had mistrusted, had 
come to his aid. The police made it- 
self the auxiliary of him, Nicless. It 
delivered him from “ those people.” It 
brought him the means that he was 
seeking. The police was chasing away 
this IJrsus, whom he wanted to bow 
out. Superior authority. No objection 
could be made. He was enchanted. He 
interposed. 

— Your honor, this man . . . 

He indicated IJrsus with his finger. 

— This man asks how to set about 
leaving England to-day. Nothing more 
simple. Every day and every night 
there are vessels sailing for different 
countries, from the Thames anchoring- 
grounds, on this side, and on the other 
side of London Bridge. They go from 
England to Denmark, to Holland, to 
Spain — not to France, on account of 
the war, but everywhere else. To- 
night, several vessels will start, toward 
three o’clock in the morning, when the 
tide suits. Among others, the galliot 
Vograa% of Rotterdam. 

The justice of the quorum made a 
movement of the shoulder on the side 
toward Ursus: 

— So be it ! Start by the first craft 
tliat falls in your way. By the Vograat. 

— Judge ! said Ursus. 

— Well? 

— Judge, if I had only, as formerly, 
my little booth upon wheels, that might 
. be. It might be put on board a vessel. 

But . . . 

— But what ? 

— But I have the Green-Box, which 
is a huge machine with two horses; 
and, however large a vessel may be, 
that can never be shipped. 


269 

— What’s that to me? said the jus- 
tice. The wolf may be killed. 

Ursus, shuddering, felt himself han- 
dled as by a hand of ice. — The mon- 
sters ! thought he. To kill people ! 
That’s their expedient. 

The tavern-keeper smiled, and ad- 
dressed himself to Ursus : 

— Master Ursus, you can sell the 
Green-Box. 

Ursus looked at Nicless. 

— Master Ursus, you have had an 
offer. 

. — From whom? 

— Offer for the caravan. Offer for 
the two horses. Offer for the two wo- 
men. Offer . . . 

— From whom? repeated Ursus. 

— From the master of the neighbor- 
ing circus. 

— That’s true. 

Ursus remembered it. 

Master Nicless turned toward the 
justice of the quorum. 

— Your honor, the bargain can be 
concluded this very day. The master of 
the circus close by desires to purchase 
the big caravan and the two horses. 

— This master of the circus is right, 
said the justice, for he is about to have 
need of them. A carriage and horses — 
that will be of use to him. He, too, 
will start to-day. The clergy of the 
parishes of Southwark have complained 
of the obscene hubbub of the Tarrin- 
zeau-Field. The sheriff has taken his 
measures. This evening, there won’t 
be a single mountebank’s bootli upon 
the place. An end of scandals. The 
honorable gentleman who deigns to bo 
here present . . . 

The justice of the quorum interrupt- 
ed himself by a bow to Barkilphedro, 
which Barkilphedro returned to him. 

— The honorable gentleman, who 
deigns to be here present, arrived to- 
night, from Windsor. He brings orders. 
Her Majesty has said: “This must bo 
swept away.” 


270 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Ursus, in his long reflection that last- 
ed all night, had not failed to ask him- 
self some questions. After all, he had 
only seen one bier. Was he quite cer- 
tain that Gwynplaine was in it ? There 
might be other dead men upon earth, 
besides Gwynplaine. ' A coflin passing 
by is not a corpse telling its name. Sub- 
sequently to Gwynplaine’s arrest, there 
had been a buriah That proved noth- 
ing. Post hoc, non propter hoc, etc. — 
Ursus had got back to doubting. Hope 
burns and lightens over agony, as naph- 
tha upon water. This buoyant flame 
floats eternally over human grief. Ur- 
sus had ended by saying to himself: — It 
was probably Gwynplaine who was 
buried; but it is not certain. Who 
knows ? Gwynplaine is still living, per- 
haps. 

Ursus bent down before the justice, 

— Honorable judge, I will set out. 
We will set out. There shall be a gen- 
eral setting out. By the Vograat, For 
Eotterdam. I will obey. I will sell 
the Green-Box, the horses, the trump- 
ets, the Egyptian women. But there is 
one person who is with me, a comrade, 
whom I cannot leave behind me, Gwyn- 
plaine . . . 

— Gwynplaine is dead, said a voice. 

Ursus felt an impression of cold, as 
though a reptile had crept over his 
skin. It was Barkilphedro who had 
spoken. 

The last gleam of light faded away. 
No more doubt. Gwynplaine was dead. 

This personage ought to know. He 
was sinister enough for that. 

Ursus bowed to him. 

Master Nicless, save for his coward- 
ice, was a very good fellow. But, when 
frightened, he was atrocious. Fear is 
supreme ferocity. 

He muttered : 

— Simplification. 

And there took place^ behind Ursus, 
that rubbing of hands, peculiar to ego- 
tists, which signifies : “ There ; I’m 


well out of it ! ” and seems as though 
made over the hand-basin of Pontius 
Pilate, 

Ursus, overwhelmed, bowed his head. 
Death, the sentence of Gwynplaine, was 
executed ; and, as for himself, his sen- 
tence had been pronounced, exile. There 
was nothing left, but to obey. He 
mused. 

He felt some one touch his elbow. It 
was the acolyte of the justice of the 
quorum. Ursus shuddered. 

The voice that had said, “ Gwyn- 
plaine is dead,” whispered in his ear : 

— Here are ten pounds sterling, sent 
you by a well-wisher. 

And Barkilphedro laid a small purse 
upon a table in front of Ursus. 

It may be remembered that Barkil- 
phedro brought away a casket. 

Ten guineas, out of two thousand — 
that was all that Barkilphedro could 
manage. In conscience, it was enough. 
If he had given more, he would have 
lost by it. He had taken the trouble to 
bring about the finding of a lord ; he 
had begun the working it ; it was fair 
that the first product of the mine should 
belong to him. They, who see meanness 
herein, would be in the right of it ; but 
astonishment would be a mistake. Bar- 
kilphedro loved money — particularly 
when stolen. Avarice is embraced in 
envy. Barkilphedro was not free from 
defects. Committing crimes does not 
prevent the having vices. Tigers have 
lice. 

Besides, that was the school of Bacon. 

Barkilphedro turned toward the jus- 
tice of the quorum, and said to him : 

— Have the goodness, sir, to bring 
this matter to an end. I am in a great 
hurry. A chaise, with proper relays 
of her Majesty’s horses, is waiting for 
me. I must set off at full gallop for 
Windsor, and must be there in two 
hours from this time. I have accounts 
to render, and orders to receive. 

The justice of the quorum got up. 


271 


STATE SEASONS, ETC. 


He went to tlie door, wliich was only 
fastened by a bolt, opened it, looked, 
without uttering a word, at tlie squad 
of police, and flashed upon them with 
his forefinger a signal of authority. The 
whole group entered with that silence 
which portends the coming of some- 
thing severe. 

Master Nicless — satisfied with the 
rapid unravelling that cut complica- 
tions short, and charmed to be out of 
this entangled skein — feared, on seeing 
BO many officers deploying, that Ursus 
would be arrested then and there. Two 
arrests, one close upon the other, in 
his house — that of Gwynplaine, then 
that of Ursus — might injure the tavern, 
drinkers not liking to be interrupted by 
the police. Master Nicless brought his 
smiling countenance, whereon confi- 
dence was tempered by respect, to bear 
upon the justice of the quorum : 

— Your honor, I would call your 
honor’s attention to the fact that 
these honorable gentlemen, the ser- 
geants, are not indispensable, now that 
the culpable wolf is about to be trans- 
ported out of England, and that the man 
Ursus makes no resistance, and that 
your honor’s orders are punctually 
obeyed. Your honor will bear in mind 
that the respectable acts of the police, 
so necessary to the well-being of the 
kingdom, do harm to an establishment, 
and that my house is innocent. The 
mountebanks of the Green-Box being 
swept away, as says her Majesty the 
queen, I see no longer any criminal 
here, for I do not suppose that the blind 
girl and the two gipsy women are de- 
linquents; and I would implore your 
honor to deign to abridge your august 
visit, and to dismiss these worthy gen- 
tlemen who have just entered, for they 
have nothing to do in my house ; and, 
if your honor would permit me to prove 
the justice of my statement in the form 
of an humble question, I would render 
the uselessness of the presence of these 


venerable gentlemen evident, by asking 
of your honor : — Since the aforesaid 
Ursus yields and sets out, whom can 
they have to arrest here ? 

— You, said the justice. 

There is no disputing with a sword- 
thrust, that pierces you through and 
through. Master Nicless sank down, 
overwhelmed, upon — no matter what — 
upon a table, upon a bench, upon what 
was at hand. 

The justice raised his voice so much 
that, if there had been any one on the 
place outside, it might have been heard : 

— Master Nicless Plumtre, keeper of 
this tavern, this is the last point to be 
set in order. This juggler and this 
wolf are vagabonds. They are driven 
away. But the most culpable one is 
yourself. It is in your house, and with 
your privity, that the law has been 
violated ; and you, a licensed individ- 
ual, invested with public responsi- 
bility, you have installed scandal under 
your roof I Master Nicless, your license 
is revoked ; you will pay a fine, and to 
prison you will go. 

The officers of police surrounded the 
tavern-keeper. The justice continued, 
indicating Govicum : 

— This boy, your accomplice, is ar- 
rested. 

An officer’s wrist swooped upon the 
collar of Govicum, who regarded the 
officer with curiosity. The boy, not 
much frightened, comprehended but 
little, had already seen more than one 
strange sight, and asked himself if this 
was the playing out of the comedy. 

The justice of the quorum pressed 
down his hat upon his head, crossed his 
two hands over his stomach, which is 
the nepUis ultra oi majesty, and added : 

— It is ordered. Master Nicless ; you 
wiU be taken to prison and put in jail. 
You, and this boy. And this house, the 
Tadcaster Inn, will remain shut, under 
ban, and closed. For example’s sake. 
Whereupon, you are to follow us. 


272 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


BOOK YII. 

THE SHE- TI TA N. 

I. 

WAKING. 

— And Dea ! 

It seemed to Gwynplaine — as he 
watched the day dawning at Oorleone 
Lodge, while these adventures were 
occurring at the Tadcaster Inn — ^that 
this exclamation came from without; 
the exclamation Avas within himself. 

Who has not heard the profound out- 
cries of the soul ? 

Furthermore, the day was coming on. 

The morning is a voice. 

Of what use would bo the sun, were 
it not to awaken that gloomy sleeper, 
the conscience ? 

Light and virtue are of the same race. 

Whether the god be called Christ or 
Love, there is always an hour when he 
is forgotten, even by the best. We 
have, all of us — even the saints — need 
of a voice to bring back our recollec- 
tions ; and the day-dawn causes the 
sublime wamer to speak within us. 
Conscience cries out in face of duty, as 
the cock crows before the morn. 

That chaos, the human heart, hears 
the Fiat lux ! 

Gwynplaine — we continue to call him 
thus : Clancharlie is a lord, Gwynplaine 
is a man — Gwynplaine was as though 
raised from the dead. 

It Avas time that the artery AV'as tied. 

There w’as, in him, an absconding of 
honor. 

— And Dea ! said he. 

And he felt in his veins as it w^ere 
a generous transfusion. Something 
of healthful and tumultuous coursed 
through him. The violent irruption of 
rightful thoughts, is the return home 
of a man, who is Avithout his key, and 
Avho climbs honestly over his own wall. 
There is a scaling, but for good pur- 
pose ; there is an assault, but upon evil. 


— Dea ! Dea ! Dea 1 repeated he. 

He assured himself of his own heart. 

And he asked this question aloud : 

— Where are you ? 

Almost astonished that there was no 
reply. 

He resumed looking at the ceiling 
and the walls, and with a distraction 
through which reason was coming 
back : 

— Where are you ? Where am I ? 

And in that chamber, in that cage, ho 
began again to pace up and down, wdth 
the tread of a wild animal shut up. 

— Where am I ? At Windsor. And 
you ? At South Avark. Ah, good Heav- 
ens ! now for the first time is there a 
distance between us. Who, then, has 
spaced it out? I here; you there I 
Oh, this is not ! this shall not be I 
What is it that they have done to 
me ? 

He stopped. 

— Who, then, has spoken to me of 
the queen ? Do I know any thing ol 
this ? Changed ? I changed ? Why ? Be- 
cause I am a lord. Do you know wdiat 
is taking place, Dea? Y^ou are a lady. 
They are marvellous, these things that 
are happening. Ah, pshav^ ! it is all 
about finding my way again. Had any 
one lost me ? There is a fellow, Avho 
has spoken to me with a mysterious 
air. I remember the words that he 
addressed to me : — My lord, one door, 
as it opens, closes another door. What 
is behind you has no more existence. — 
In other w'ords; — You are a craven! — 
That man, the wretch! said this to me 
while I was not yet awakened. He 
took advantage of my first moment of 
surprise. I was as though a prey that 
he grasped. Where is he, that I may 
abuse him ? He spoke to me with the 
sombre smile of a dream. Ah ! now I 
am becoming myself again! That is 
well. It is a mistake to suppose that 
any one can make what he wishes, out 
of Lord Clancharlie. Peer of Eng- 


LIKENESS OF A PALACE TO A WOOD. 


273 


land? Yes, with a peeress, who is 
Dea, Conditions? Do I accept any? 
The queen ? What matters the queen 
to me? I liave never seen her. I am 
not lord, to be slave. I enter, free, into 
my prerogative. Do they believe that 
they have unchained me for nothing ? 
They have taken my muzzle off ; that 
is the whole of it. CDea! TJrsus! we 
are linked together. What you were, 
I was I What I am, you are. Come ! 
No. I will go there. At once, at 
once ; I have waited too long already. 
What must they think, on not seeing 
me return? That money! When I 
think that I sent them money I It was 
I that was needed. That man told me, 
I remember, that I could not go out 
hence. We shall see about that. Hol- 
lo, there, a carriage ! a carriage 1 Put 
the horses to ! I will go and look for 
them. Where are the valets ? There 
ought to be valets, since there is a 
lord. I am master here. It is my 
house ; and I will twist the bolts, and 
force the locks, and break down the 
doors by kicking. If any one bars my 
passage, I will pass my sword through 
his body, for now I have a sword. I 
should like to see any one resist me ! I 
have a wife, who is Dea. I have a fa- 
ther, who is TJrsus. My house is a pal- 
ace, and I give it to TJrsus. My name is 
a coronet, and I give it to Dea. Quick I 
At this instant ! Dea, here I am I Ah 1 
Bah! I shall soon have got over the 
interval ! 

And, raising the first door-curtain 
that came to hand, he went out impetu- 
ously from the room. 

He found himself in a corridor. 

He held straight on. 

A second corridor presented itself. 

All the doors were open. 

He began walking on at hazard, from 
room to room, from passage to passage, 
looking for the way out. 


II. 

LIKENESS OF A PALACE TO A WOOD. 

CoELEONE Lodge being in the style 
of Italian palaces, there were very few 
doors. All was curtain, drapery over 
entrances, tapestry. 

Never a palace at that epoch, which 
had not, in its interior arrangement, a 
medley of rooms and of corridors, 
wherein pomp abounded; gildings, 
marbles, chiselled wainscotings, Oriental 
silks, with nooks that told of secrecy 
and obscurity, while others were ablaze 
with light. There were garrets rich and 
gay ; small apartments varnished and 
shining, covered with pantiles from Hol- 
land, or azulejos from Portugal; em- 
brasures of lofty bay-windows that 
overhung cabinets all in glass, pretty 
lanterns for living in. The thickness 
of the wall, if hollowed out, would be 
habitable. Here and ‘there, gems of 
boxes, that were wardrobes. This was 
called “ les petits appartements ” — the 
suite of rooms for ordinary use. There- 
in it was that crimes were annotated. 

If it was necessary to kill the Due 
de Guise, or to lead astray the fair 
president of Sylvecane, or, at a later 
period, to stifle the cries of the little 
ones whom Lebel had brought in — this 
was convenient. A complicated abode, 
not intelligible to a new-comer. Place 
for abductions ; unknown depth, where- 
to disappearances tended. Princes and 
lords deposited their spoil in these ele- 
gant caverns. There did the Comte de 
Oharolais hide Madame Courchamp, 
the wife of the Master of Requests; 
there did Monsieur de Monthul6 hide 
the daughter of Haudry, the farmer 
of la Croix-Saint-Lenfroy ; there did 
the Prince de Conti hide the two 
beautiful baker’s girls of Pile- Adam ; 
there did the Duke of Buckingham 
hide poor Pennywell, etc. The deeds 
that were there accomplished were of 


18 


274 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


tlie sort that are done, as the Eoman 
law says, t'i, clam^ et ^recario, by 
force, in secret, and for temporary 
purpose. Whoever was there remained 
there, according to the master’s good 
pleasure. There were secret dungeons, 
gilded. A compound of cloister and 
seraglio. Staircases turned, mounted 
up, descended. A spiral of rooms, 
dovetailed into each other, brought 
you back to your starting-point. A 
gallery ended in an oratory. A con- 
fessional was grafted on an alcove. 
The ramifications of coral and the 
piercings of sponge had probably served 
as models to the architects of the royal 
and seigniorial “ petits appartements.” 
The branchings-oflf were inextricable. 
Portraits, pivoting upon openings, of- 
‘ fered exits and entrances. All was 
planned out. And requisite it was ; 
dramas were played there. The stories 
of this hive extended from cellar to 
garret. Quaint madrepore coral en- 
crusted in all palaces, beginning with 
Versailles, made as it were a habita- 
tion for pigmies in the dwelling-place 
of Titans. Passages, altars at stations, 
nests, cells in honeycombs, hiding- 
places. All sorts of holes, whereinto 
the littlenesses of the great were thrust. 

These walled and winding quarters 
woke ideas of games, of bandaged eyes, 
of groping hands, of suppressed laugh- 
ter, of blind-man’s-bufi‘, of hide-and- 
seek ; and at the same time suggested 
dreams of the Atrides, of the Plan- 
tagenets, of the Medicis, of the wild 
knights of Elz, of Eizzio, of Monal- 
deschi, of swords pursuing a fugitive 
from room to room. 

Antiquity also, on its part, had mys- 
terious abodes of this sort, wherein 
luxury was dedicated to horrors. A 
specimen of them has been preserved, 
underground, in certain sepulchres of 
Egypt; for instance, in the crypt of 
King Psammeticus, discovered by Pas- 
salacqua. Fear of these suspected con- 


structions is found in the old poets. 
Error circurajlexu8. Locus implicitus 
gyris. 

Gwynplaine was in the “ petits ap- 
partements” of Corleone Lodge. 

He was in a fever to go away, to be 
outside, to see Dea again. This intri- 
cacy of corridors and of cells, of hidden 
doors, and doors unexpected, stayed him 
and slackened his pace. He would have 
wished to run ; he was forced to wan- 
der. He thought that he had but a door 
to push open — he had a skein to unravel. 

After one bedroom, another. Then a 
gathering of saloons. 

He met nothing living. He listened. 
Ko movement. 

It appeared to him sometimes that 
he was retracing his steps. 

At intervals, he thought ho saw some 
one coming to him. It was no one. It 
was himself, in a mirror, in a lord’s 
costume. 

It was his improbable self. He rec- 
ognized himself ; but not immediately. 

He went on, taking all the passages 
that presented themselves. 

He involved himself in the meander- 
ings of domestic architecture ; there, a 
cabinet coquettishly painted and carved, 
somewhat lascivious, and extremely dis- 
creet ; there, a chapel of doubtful char- 
acter, all in scales of mother-of-pearl 
and enamel, with ivory-work made to 
be looked at through a magnifying- 
glass, like the lids of snufi^-boxes ; 
there, one of those precious Florentine 
retreats set apart for feminine hypo- 
chondriacs, and which were then called 
'boudoirs. Everywhere, upon the ceil- 
ings, upon the Avails, even upon the 
fioors, there were configurations in 
velvet or in metal, of birds and trees, 
of extravagant vegetation in clus- 
tered pearls, of embossments in lace, 
of nets of bugles, of warriors, of queens, 
of female Tritons. The bevellings of 
cut crystals added the effect of 
prisms to the effect of reflection. 


EVE. 


Table glassware played off precious 
stones. Dark buffets in corners were 
seen to sparkle. It was not clear, 
whether all these luminous facets — 
wherein emerald green was merged in 
gold of the rising sun, and dove-colored 
tints went floating — were microscopic 
mirrors, or aqua-marina of extraordi- 
nary size. Magniflcence, delicate at 
once and immense. It was the most 
coquettish of palaces, at least if it were 
not the most colossal of caskets. A 
house for Mab, or a jewel for G4o. 
Gwynplaine sought a way out. 

He did not find it. Impossible to de- 
termine his direction. Nothing gets 
into the head so soon as opulence, when 
seen for the first time. But, beyond 
this, it was a labyrinth. At each step, 
a magnificence was an obstacle to him. 
This one seemed to resist his going 
away. That one had the air of not 
wishing to loose its hold on him. He 
was as though snared in bird-lime of 
marvels. He felt that he was seized 
and kept fast. 

— What a horrible palace ! thought 
he. 

He prowled uneasily around this 
maze, asking himself what it meant, 
whether he was in prison, becoming 
irritated, sighing for free *air. He re- 
peated : “ Dea I Dea ! ” as you might 
clutch the thread which will guide you 
out, and which you must not allow to 
be broken. 

From time to time he called out : 

— Ho, some one ! 

There was no answer. 

The rooms came never to an end. 
All was deserted, silent, splendid, sinis- 
ter. 

Enchanted castles may be imagined 
thus. 

Hidden hot-air holes kept up a sum- 
mer temperature in these corridors and 
these cabinets. The month of June 
appeared to have been taken by some 
magician, and shut up in this labyrinth. 


275 

This was agreeable sometimes to the 
senses. Whiffs of perfume were trav- 
ersed, as if invisible flowers were 
there. 

Gwynplaine looked out of the win- 
dows. The view was different. At 
one moment, he saw gardens filled 
with the freshness of spring and of 
morning ; at another, new fronts of 
buildings with new statues ; at another, 
small quadrangular courts, after the 
Spanish fashion, between important 
buildings, flagged, mouldy, and cold; 
at another, a river that was the 
Thames ; at another, a huge tower 
that was Windsor. 

Outside, at so early an hour, there 
were no passers-by. 

He stopped. He listened. 

— Oh I I will go away, said he. I 
will rejoin Dea. I shall not be kept 
here by force. A curse on any one who 
would desire to hinder me from going 
out ! What is that vast tower there ? 
If there is a giant, a dog from hell, a 
Tarascon crocodile, that bars the door 
of this bewitched palace, I will exter- 
minate him. An army — I will devour 
it. Dea I Dea ! 

Suddenly he heard a slight noise, a 
very slight noise. It was like running 
water. 

He was in a narrow and dark corri- 
dor, closed, at some steps before him, 
by a curtain divided in the middle. 

He walked up to this curtain, put it 
aside and entered. . . 

He found himself in the unexpected. 

IH. 

EVE. 

An octagonal room with flat-arched 
ceiling, without windows, lighted from 
above, lined — walls, floor, and vaulted 
roof — with peach-blossom-colored mar- 
ble ; in the middle of the room, a can- 
opy in pall-black marble culminating 


276 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


in a point, and having wreathed col- 
umns, in the massive and charming 
style of Elizabeth, overshadowing a 
bath-basin also in black marble ; in the 
middle of the basin a delicate jet of 
scented and tepid water filling the 
basin softly and slowly — this was what 
he had before his eyes. 

Black bath, thus constructed, in order 
to transform the whiteness into lustre. 

It was this water that he had heard. 
An escape-pipe in the bath, at a cer- 
tain level, prevented any overflow. 
The basin smoked, but in such small 
degree that there was scarcely a sign of 
vapor on the marble. The slender jet 
of water was like a supple rod of 
steel, that bends at the least breath of 
wind. 

No furniture, except, beside the bath, 
one of those cushioned reclining-couch- 
es, made long enough to lie upon it 
with a dog at the feet. 

It was a Spanish couch, seeing that 
the framework was in silver. The 
cushions and the arms were covered 
with white glacee silk. 

Set against the wall, on the other 
side of the bath, appeared a dressing- 
table in solid silver, with all its appli- 
ances, and having in the middle eight 
small Venetian mirrors in silver sash- 
work, suggesting a window. 

In the side of the wall nearest to the 
couch, there was a square recess hol- 
lowed out, that looked like a dormer- 
window, and that was closed by a 
panel made of a sheet of red-silver. 
The panel had hinges as a shutter has. 

^ A royal crown, inlaid and gilded, spar- 
kled upon the red silver. Above the 
panel a clock-bell, silver-gilt if not in 
gold,' was suspended and secured to the 
wall. • 

Opposite the entrance of this room, 
facing Gwynplaine, who had stopped 
short, there was a break in the marble 
lining. It was replaced by an opening 
of the same size, reaching up to the 


spring of the vaulted ceiling, and closed 
by a broad and lofty cloth of silver 
tissue. 

This cloth, of fairy-like fineness, was 
transparent. It could be seen through. 

In the centre of the cloth, where the 
spider is generally found, Gwynplaine 
saw something formidable — a woman 
sleeping. 

The silver tissue, transparent as glass, 
was a curtain. It was only fastened 
from above, and might be lifted. It 
separated the room in marble, which 
was a bath-room, from a chamber, 
which was a bedchamber. This cham- 
ber, a very small one, might almost bo 
called a grotto of mirrors. All round 
it, Venetian glasses— close together, 
adjusted in polyhedrons, and connected 
by gilded rods — reflected the bed that 
was in the centre. Upon the bed, in 
silver, like the toilet-table and the 
couch, the woman was lying. She was 
sleeping, with her head thrown back. 

Her pillow of guipure had fallen to 
the ground, upon the carpet. 

The chamber, rather an alcove than 
a chamber, was lighted, with something 
of reticence, by the reflection from the 
bath-room. 

The bed had neither posts, nor dais, 
nor canopy, so that the woman, on 
opening her eyes, could see herself a 
thousand times reflected in the mirrors 
above her head. 

The sheets were in disorder, as by a 
troubled sleep. Their fine quality was 
indicated by the beauty of the folds. 
This was the epoch when a queen, sup- 
posing that she would be damned, 
figured hell to herself in this wise : a 
bed, with coarse sheets. 

A dressing-gown of curious silk — 
Chinese undoubtedly, for a large lizard 
in gold might be seen through its folds 
— was thrown over the foot of the 
bed. 

Beyond the bed, at the end of the 
alcove, there was probably a door. 


EVE. 


211 


masked and indicated by a sufficiently 
large glass, upon wMcb were painted 
pe^ocks and swans. In this chamber, 
disposed in shadow, every thing shone 
brightly. The spaces between the crys- 
tals and the gildings were glazed with 
that glistening composition, which is 
called at Venice “ fiel de verre,” unvitri- 
fied salt. 

At the bed’s head there was a desk 
set up, of silver, with movable ledges 
and fixtures for lights. On this, an 
open book might be seen, having on the 
top of its pages this title, in large red 
letters: Alcoranus Mahumedis. 

Gwynplaine saw not a single one of 
these details. What he saw was the 
woman. 

He was at the same time petrified 
and overwhelmed — a contradiction, but 
a fact. 

He recognized the wofiaan. 

She had her eyes shut, and her face 
turned toward him. 

It was the duchess. 

She, that mysterious being in whom 
were mingled all the splendors of the 
unknown — she, who had written him 
so strange a letter ! 

He had chased away dreams ; he 
had burned the letter. He had ban- 
ished her, so far as he possibly could, 
from his dreams and from his memory. 
He thought no more of her; he had 
forgotten her. . . 

He saw her again ! 

He no longer breathed. He felt 
himself uplifted as in a nimbus, and 
urged on. He looked. That woman 
before him ! Was it possible ? 

At the theatre, duchess. Here, He- 
reid, Haiad, Fairy. In either case, an 
apparition. 

He attempted to retreat, and found 
■ that that could not be. His looks had 
become two chains, and bound him to 
the vision. 

The divinity of an august slumber 
spoke out, from that unconscious brow. 


from those golden and scattered tresses, 
from those drooped eyelashes, from 
those blue veins dimly perceptible. 

Gwynplaine shuddered. He ad- 
mired. 

Unwholesome admiration, too pro- 
foundly interesting ! 

He was afraid. 

Fate’s surprise-box does not exhaust 
itself. Gwynplaine thought that he 
had come to the end of it. He was be- 
ginning agaij^. What were all these 
flashes oflightning launched unceasing- 
ly over his head. What were these 
courtesies of the unknown tempter, 
fulfilling, one after another, his vague 
aspirations, his confused desires become 
living flesh, and overwhelming him 
beneath an intoxicating series of actu- 
alities drawn from the impossible ? 
Was there a conspiracy of all the shades 
against him, poor wretch ; and what 
would he become with all these smiles 
of sinister Fortune around him ? What 
was this dizziness, expressly arranged ? 
This woman there ! Why ? How ? 

Ho explanation! Why he? Why she? 
Was he made peer of England pur- 
posely for this duchess ? Who brought 
them thus one to the other? Who was 
dupe ? Who was victim ? Whose good 
faith was abused ? He could not bring 
all these things to a point. He saw them 
athwart a flight of clouds within his 
brain. This magical and malevolent 
abode, this strange palace, tenacious as 
a prison — was it in the plot ? Gwyn- 
plaine underwent a sort of reabsorp- 
tion. Obscure forces throttled him 
mysteriously. A gravitation enchained • 
him. His will, drawn OS’, went out of 
him. Whereto should he cling? He 
was haggard and under a spell. This 
time, he felt himself insane beyond 
remedy. The fall headlong into the 
depths of wonderment continued. 

At intervals, the duchess softly shift- 
ed her place upon the bed, with the 
vague movement of a shadow in the 


278 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


azure, changing her attitude as the 
cloud changes its form. 

Gwynplaine had counted upon every 
thing, hut this. A fierce guardian 
across the threshold, some furious mon- 
ster to contend with — for these he had 
looked. He had foreseen Cerberus. He 
found Hebe. 

He closed his eyelids. Too much of 
morning-light in the eyes causes pain. 
But, through his closed eyelids, all sud- 
denly, he saw her aga^n. More in 
shadow, none the less lovely. 

Taking flight is no easy matter. He 
had tried, and he could not. He was 
rooted, as we are in dreams. He de- 
sired, but knew not how, to snatch 
himself from this attraction. He felt no 
longer any thing to cling to. Human 
fluctuations are infinite. A man may 
be disabled, as a ship is. Conscience 
is the anchor. Fatal fact, the anchor 
may break. 

He had not even this resource: “I 
am disfigured and terrific. She will re- 
pulse me.” The woman had told him, 
in writing, that she was in love with 
him. 

In crises, there is an instant of losing 
the perpendicular. When we lap over 
toward evil more than we lean upon 
good, that portion of ourselves, which 
hovers over the evil, ends by gaining the 
ascendency, and precipitates us down- 
ward. Had this sad moment come for 
Gwynplaine? 

How to escape ? 

Thus, she it was I The duchess ! , That 
woman I He had her before him, in 
that chamber, in a lone place, asleep. 

The duchess I 

You have remarked a star in the 
depths of space. You have admired it. 
It is so far away! What is there to 
fear in a fixed star ? Some day — some 
night — ^you see it shift its place. You 
make out a quivering of light around 
it. The star, that you thought immov- 
able, moves. It is not a star ; it is a 


comet. It is the immense incendiary 
of the sky. The star moves on, en- 
larges itself, shakes out its purple 
stream of hair, becomes enormous. Its 
direction is to your side. Oh, terror, it 
is coming to you I The comet knows 
you, wishes for you, would have you. 
Terrific celestial approach! What 
comes upon you is too much of light, 
which is blindness ; is the excess of 
life, which is death. You refuse this 
advance, that the zenith makes to you. 
You reject this ofier of love from the 
abyss. You put your hands over your 
eyelids, you hide yourself, you shrink 
away from yourself, you think that 
you are saved. . . — You reopen your 
eyes. The terrible star is there. It is 
star no more ; it is world. World un- 
known. World, of lava and of em- 
bers. Devouring prodigy of the 
depths! It fills up the sky. Noth- 
ing is there, but it alone. The car- 
buncle deep-seated in the infinite, a 
diamond in the distance, is, when 
near, a furnace. You are in its flame. 

And you feel your burning up begin 
with a warmth from paradise. 

lY. 

SATAN. 

The sleeper suddenly awoke. She 
raised herself and sat up, with a ma- 
jestic movement, at once abrupt and 
harmonious. Her blond hair, like floss- 
silk, spread itself with tumultuous 
softness below her waist ; she stretched 
herself and yawned, like a tigress at 
the rising of the sun. 

Gwynplaine probably breathed with 
effort, as when the respirations are held 
back. 

— Is there any one there ? said she. 

At the same time she drew to 
her her dressing-gown, and in the 
twinkling of an eye the silken robe 
was around her. The sleeves, being 
very long, hid her hands; and the 


SATAN. 


279 


tips of her toes were only visible — 
white with tiny nails, like those on the 
foot of a child. 

She brought forward from her back 
a flood of hair that she threw over her 
robe, then passed rapidly behind the 
bed to the further part of the alcove, 
and applied her ear to the painted mir- 
ror which apparently covered a door. 

She knocked upon the glass with the 
little elbow, that is made by the fore- 
flnger bent back. 

—Is there any one there ? Lord 
David, is it you already ? What 
o’clock is it? Is it you, Barkilphe- 
dro ? 

She turned round. 

— But no. It is not from that side. 
Is there any one in the bath-room ? An- 
swer ! In fact, it can’t be ; no one can 
come in that way. 

She went to the silver-gauze curtain, 
opened it with the point of her foot, 
set it aside by a movement of her shoul- 
der, and entered the marble room. 

Gwynplaine felt, as it were, a chill 
of agony. Ho refuge now. It was too 
late to fly. Besides, he had not the 
strength. He might have wished the 
floor to split asunder, and to fall, him- 
self, underground. Ho means of keep- 
ing himself unseen. 

She saw him. 

She looked at him, prodigiously as- 
tonished, but without a start, and with 
a blending of delight and contempt. 

— What! said she, Gwynplaine! 

Then abruptly, and with a violent 
bound — for this cat was a panther — 
she threw herself on his neck. 

She pressed his head between her 
arms, then suddenly — pushing him back, 
bringing down her two little hands, 
like talons, upon Gwynplaine’s two 
shoulders, she standing up before him, he 
standing up before her — she began to 
eye him strangely. 

She eyed him, ominous, with her eyes 
of Aldebaran, a mixed visual ray, hav- 


ing in it a certain something of the equi- 
vocal and of the starry. Gwynplaine 
contemplated that blue eyeball and that 
black eyeball, under the double flxity 
of the look from heaven and the look 
from hell. The woman and the man 
interchanged a sinister dazzling. They 
fascinated one the other — he by de- 
formity, she by beauty. 

He was silent, as under a weight im- 
possible to lift up. She exclaimed : 

— You have intelligence; therefore 
you have come. You knew that I had 
been forced to set off from London. You 
have followed me. You have done well. 
You are wonderful, to be here. 

A reciprocal taking possession has, in 
a certain sense, the effect of a lightning- 
flash. Gwynplaine recoiled, confusedly 
warned by a vague fear, savage and de- 
cent ; but the rosy nails imprinted on 
his shoulder held him firm. Something 
of the inexorable was roughly sketch- 
ing itself out. Himself a wild man, he 
was in the den of a wUd woman. 

She went on : 

— Anne, that fool — you know, the 
queen? — made me come to Windsor 
without knowing why. When I ar- 
rived, she was closeted with her idiot 
of a chancellor. But how did you 
manage to reach me here? That is 
what I call being a man. Obstacles ? 
There are none. He is called, and he 
comes quickly. Did you get informa- 
tion ? You know my name, I think, the 
Duchess Josiane? Who introduced 
you? It was the valet-boy, without 
doubt. He is intelligent. I will give 
him a hundred guineas. How did you 
set about it ? Tell me that. Ho, don’t 
teU me. I don’t want to know. Ex- 
plaining belittles. I like you better to 
be surprising. You are monstrous 
enough to be marvellous. You fall 
down from the empyrean, look you, 
or you mount from the triple under- 
ground, through the trap-door of Ere- 
bus. Hothing more simple; the ceil- 


280 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


ing has parted, or the floor has opened. 
A descent by the clouds, or an ascent 
in a flame of sulphur — that is how you 
have come. You deserve to enter like 
the gods. That is enough. 

Gwynplaine listened with impaired 
mind, feeling his thoughts vibrate more 
and more. It was complete. And im- 
possible to doubt. The woman con- 
flrmed the letter sent at night. He, 
Gwynplaine, lover of a duchess, lover 
beloved! Immense pride, with its 
thousand sombre heads, was stirring in 
that miserable heart. 

Vanity, prodigious force within us, 
against us ! The duchess continued : 

— Since you are here, it is because it is 
willed. I ask no more about it. The 
day that I saw you, I said : — It is he. I 
recognize him. It is the monster of my 
dreams. We must aid destiny, that 
is why I wrote to you. One ques- 
tion, Gwynplaine. Do you believe 
in predestination ? I believe in it, 
myself, since reading Scipio’s Dream 
in Cicero. Stay, I had not noticed it. 
A gentleman’s coat ! You have dressed 
yourself like a lord. Why not? You 
are a mountebank. So much the more 
reason. A juggler is as good as a lord. 
Besides, what are lords? Clowns. You 
have a noble flgure ; you are extremely 
well made. It is unheard of, that you 
should be here. When did you arrive ? 
How long have you been in this 
place? Oh, I love you! You read my 
letter? Did you read it yourself? 
Was it read to you? Do you know 
how to read? You ought to be ig- 
norant. I ask you questions ; but do 
not answer them. I don’t like your 
tone of voice. It is sweet. A being, 
so incomparable as you are, ought not 
to speak ; he ought to gnash his teeth. 
You sing, and that is harmonious. I 
hate it. It is the only thing in you 
that displeases me. All the rest is 
formidable ; all the rest is superb. In 
the Indies, you would be a god. Were 


you born with that awful laugh upon 
your face? No — am I not right? It 
is, beyond doubt, a penal mutilation. I 
really trust that you have committed 
some crime. 

— I love you, not only because you 
are deformed, but because you are low 
down. I love the monster, and I love 
the stage-player. There is marvellous 
savor in a lover humiliated, scouted, 
grotesque, hideous, exposed to laughter 
upon the pillory that is called a the- 
atre. This is to bite at the fruit of the 
abyss. A lover, who is infamous, is 
exquisite. 

— Probably, without knowing it, you 
are a demon. I have kept myself 
close under a dreamer’s mask. You are 
a dancing puppet, of which a spectre 
holds the strings. You are the phan- 
tom of the great infernal laugh. You 
are the master, for whom I was waiting. 
Such a love was needed for me, as the 
Medeas have and the Canidias. 

Her words came out pell-mell, like 
an eruption. A puncture in the side 
of Etna might give an idea of this jet 
of flame. 

Gwynplaine stammered out : 

— Madam . . . 

She put her hand upon his mouth. 

— Silence ! I am studying you. 
Gwynplaine, I am immaculate. I have 
loved no man. I might bo Pythia 
at Delphos, and have under my naked 
heel the bronze tripod, wherein the 
priests, leaning their elbows on the 
python’s skin, whispered questions to 
the invisible god. My heart is of 
stone; but it resembles those mys- 
terious pebbles that the sea rolls to 
the foot of the rock Huntly Nabb, at 
the mouth of the Tees, in which, 
when broken, a serpent is found. Such 
as this serpent, my love is. A love all- 
powerful, for it has drawn you hith- 
er. An impossible distance was be- 
tween us. I was in Sirius, and you 
were in Allioth. You have made an 


SATAN. 


immeasurable transit, and you are 
here. That is well. Hush ! Take 
me ! 

She stopped. He shivered. She be- 
gan to smile again. 

— Look you, Gwynplaine ! To dream 
is to create. A wish is an appeal. To 
build up a chimera is to provoke real- 
ity. Omnipotent and terrible, the Shade 
will not be set at defiance. She satis- 
fies us. You are here. Do you know 
why I idolize you? — because I dis- 
dain you. So much are you be- 
neath me, that I raise you up upon an 
altar. To mingle the high and the low 
produces chaos, and chaos pleases me. 
Every thing begins and ends in chaos. 
What is chaos? Au enormous blot. 
And, out of this blot, God has made 
light; and, with this sewer, God has 
made the world. You know not to 
what degree I am perverse. Knead a 
star in the mud, and it would be my- 
self. 

Thus spoke this formidable woman. 

She went on : 

— Gwynplaine, we are made for each 
other. I am, internally, the monster 
that you are, externally. Thence my 
love. Caprice, it may be. What is 
the hurricane? A caprice. There is 
a starry affinity between us ; one 
and the other, we belong to night — 
you by visage, I by intelligence. You, 
in your turn, create me. You come, 
and my soul is let loose. I was un- 
acquainted with it. It is iurprising. 
Your approach makes the hydra come 
out of me, the goddess. You reveal to 
me my true nature. You make me 
make the discovery of myself. See 
how I resemble you. Look in me, as 
in a mirror. Your countenance is my 
soul. I did not know that I was terri- 
ble to this degree. I too, then, am a 
monster! O Gwynplaine, you dispel 
ray ennui. 

She laughed a strange child’s laugh, 
and said in his ear, in lowest tone : 


— Would you see a woman /i. * ’ 

am one. 

Her look penetrated Gwynj 
look is a philter. 

While the woman spoke, he 
were bespatterings of fire. He felt the 
welling-out of the irreparable. He had 
not strength to utter a word. She 
checked herself, and eyed him fixedly : 
— O monster! she murmured. She 
was savage. 

Suddenly, she seized his hands. 

— You are not ugly ; you are de- 
formed. Ugliness is little ; deform- 
ity is great. Ugliness is the devil’s 
grimace, behind beauty. Deformity is 
the reverse of sublimity. It is the 
wrong side. Olympus has two slopes : 
one, toward light, gives Apollo ; the 
other, toward darkness, gives Poly- 
phemus. You — you are Titan. You 
would be Behemoth in the forest. Le- 
viathan in the ocean, Typhon in the 
cloaca. You are supreme. There is 
the thunder-bolt in your deformity. 
Your countenance was spoiled by a 
thunder-clap. What is on your face is 
the angry wrench of the huge hand of 
flame. It moulded you, and passed on. 
The vast mysterious wrath, in a fit of 
madness, glued in your soul beneath 
this fearful superhuman visage. Hell 
is a penal chafing-dish, wherein is heat- 
ed the red-hot iron that is called Fatal- 
ity ; and by that iron you are stamped. 
To love you is to grasp what is great. 
This triumph is mine. It is by as- 
tonishment that glory is measured. I 
love you. How many nights, how 
many nights, how many nights, have 
I dreamed of you ! This palace is my 
own. You shall see my gardens. There 
are water-springs beneath the foliage, 
and beauteous groups in marble from 
the hand of the Chevalier Bernini. 
And the flowers ! They are too abun- 
dant. In the spring, it is a flush of 
roses. Have I told you that the queen 
is my sister ? Are you of any religion ? 


282 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


For my part, I am a papist. My father, 
James II., died in France with a parcel 
of Jesuits around him. NTever have I 
felt what I experience thus at your 
side. Oh ! I would he with you in the 
evening, while music was played, both 
leaning against the same cushion, under 
the purple awning of a golden galley, 
in the midst of the sea’s infinitude of 
charms. Insult me I Beat me! I 
adore you. 

Caresses may roar. Do you doubt 
it? Go in among the lions. There 
was horror in this woman, and it was 
combined with grace. Nothing more 
tragic. The claw was felt; felt also 
was the velvet. It was the attack of 
the feline tribe, wherein is sign of re- 
ceding. There was playfulness, and 
there was murder, in this vibration to 
and fro. She idolized, insolently. The 
result was madness communicated. 
Fatal language, inexpressibly violent 
and sweet. What insulted, did not in- 
sult. "What adored, outraged, deified. 
An indescribable Promethean grandeur 
was impressed by her accent upon her 
furious and amorous words. The fes- 
tivals of the great goddess, sung by 
.^schylus, invested with this sombre 
epic madness the women seeking satyrs 
beneath the stars. These paroxysms had 
their part in the mysterious dances un- 
der the oaks of Dodona. This woman 
was as though transfigured, if trans- 
figuration be possible on the side that 
is the opposite of Heaven. Her hair 
had the crispings of a lion’s mane ; the 
beamings of her blue eye mingled with 
the flamings of her black eye; she 
was supernatural. Gwynplaine, giv- 
ing way, felt himself vanquished by 
the deep penetrating power, of such 
approach. 

It was exquisite and like a light- 
ning-fiash for Gwynplaine, to he loved 
by a woman who could look and who 
had seen him. Before this woman 
charged with enigmas, he felt every 


thing fainting away within him. His 
recollection of Dea struggled, in this 
overshadowing, with but feeble cries. 
There is an antique bas-relief, that rep- 
resents the Sphinx devouring a Cupid ; 
the wings of the gentle celestial being 
are bleeding between her ferocious and 
smiling teeth. 

Was it that Gwynplaine loved this 
woman ? Is it that man, like the globe, 
has two poles ? Are we, upon our in- 
dexible axis, the turning sphere — star 
in the distance, mud in approximation — 
where day and night alternate ? Has 
the heart two sides ; one that loves in 
light, the other that loves in darkness? 
Here, woman a ray ; there, woman a 
cloaca ? The angel is a necessity. Can 
it be possible that the devil is also a 
need ? Is there, for the soul, the wing 
of the bat? Does the twilight-hour 
ring out fatally for all of us ? Is error an 
integral part of our destiny, not to be re- 
fused? Must the evil in our nature he 
taken, in the gross, with the rest ? Is 
error a debt that must be paid ? Deep 
cause for shuddering ! 

And yet a voice tells us that weak- 
ness is a crime. What Gwynplaine ex- 
perienced was inexpressible — the flesh, 
life, affright, intoxication overburdened, 
and all the amount of shame that there 
is in pride. 

She repeated : — I love you. 

Suddenly, close beside them, a little 
ringing tinkled out, sharp and clear. It 
was the b^l fastened against the wall, 
that tinkled. The duchess turned her 
head, and said : 

— What does she want with me? 

And abruptly, with the noise of a 
spring-trap, the silver panel, incrusted 
with a royal crown, slid open. 

The interior of a turning-box, lined 
with purple velvet, appeared, with a 
letter upon a plate of gold. 

The letter was voluminous and square, 
and so placed as to show the seal, which 
was a large impression upon ver- 


SATAN. 


283 


milion wax. The bell continued its 
sound. 

The duchess took the letter from the 
plate, and pushed hack the panel. The 
box was reclosed, and the bell was si- 
lent. 

The duchess broke the wax between 
her teeth, tore open the envelope, took 
out from it the two folded documents 
that it contained, and threw the envel- 
ope on the ground at Gwynplaine’s 
feet. 

The impression on the broken wax 
remained decipherable ; and Gwyn- 
plaine could distinguish on it a royal 
crown, and, below that, the letter A. 

Both sides of the torn envelope were 
exposed, so that at the same time the 
address might be read : To Tier Grace 
the Duchess Josiane. 

The two folded objects, contained in 
the envelope, were a parchment and a 
sheet of vellum. The parchment was 
large ; the vellum was small. On the 
parchihent was impressed a large chan- 
cery seal, in the green wax called “ lord- 
ship-wax.” The duchess, all palpitat- 
ing and her eyes bathed in ecstasy, 
pouted an imperceptible sign of annoy- 
ance. ^ 

— Ah ! said she, what is it that she 
sends me here ? A lot of rubbish ? What 
a kill-joy that woman is I 

And, laying aside the parchment, she 
opened the vellum. 

— It is her writing. It is my sister’s 
writing. It wearies me. Gwynplaine, 
I asked you if you knew how to read. 
Do you know how to read ? 

Gwynplaine made with his head the 
sign of yes, and, taking the vellum, 
unfolded it ; then, with a voice in 
which there were all sorts of trem- 
blings, he read: 

“ Madam, 

“We send you, of our grace, a copy 
adjoined hereto of an oflScial report, 
certified and signed by our servant Wil- 


liam Cowper, Lord-Chancellor of our 
kingdom of England, and from which 
results the important detail that the le- 
gitimate son of Lord Linnseus Clanchar- 
lie has been identified and found again, 
under the name of Gwynplaine, in th e de- 
bas(»ment of a wandering and vagabond 
existence and among mountebanks and 
jugglers. This suppression of his con- 
dition goes back to his earliest age. In 
compliance with the laws of the realm, 
and in virtue of his hereditary right. 
Lord Fermain Clancharlie, son of Lord 
Linnseus, will be, this very day, admit- 
ted and reinstated in the Chamber of 
Peers. This is why, desirous to treat 
you kindly and to preserve to you the 
transmission of the possessions and do- 
mains of the Lords Clancharlie-Hunker- 
ville, we substitute him in your good 
graces for Lord David Dirry-Moir. We 
have caused Lord Fermain to be brought 
to your residence of Corleone Lodge ; we 
order and will, as queen and sister, that 
our said Lord Fermain Clancharlie, 
called Gwynplaine, up to this day, shall 
be your husband, and you will espouse 
him, and this is our royal pleasure.” 

While Gwynplaine was reading, with 
intonations that faltered at almost every 
word, the duchess listened with set 
look. As Gwynplaine finished it, she 
snatched the letter from him. 

— Anne, Queen, said she, reading 
the signature, in dreamy tone. 

Then she picked up from the ground 
the parchment, that she had thrown 
there, and ran her eye over it. It was 
the declaration made by the lost men 
on board the Matutina^ copied upon an 
official report, signed by the sheriff of 
Southwark and by the lord-chancellor. 

Having read the report, she read 
again the queen’s communication. Then 
she said : 

— So be it ! 

And, quite calmly, pointing out 
with her finger, to Gwynplaine, the 


284 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


door-curtain of the corridor, by which 
he had entered : 

— Go out ! said she. 

Gwynplaine, petrified, remained mo- 
tionless. 

. She went on, icy : 

— Since you are my husband, go out! 

Gwynplaine, speechless and with eyes 
cast ‘down like a criminal’s, did not 
move. 

She 'added: 

— You have no right to be here. 

Gwynplaine was as though trans- 
fixed. 

— Well, then, she said; it must be I. 
I retire. Ah ! you are my husband 1 
Nothing better ; I hate you I 

And rising, and waving a lofty ges- 
ture of adieu to some one — it is hard to 
say whom — in empty space, she passed 
out. 

V. 

WE EECOGNIZE THOSE WHOM WE DO 
NOT KNOW. 

Gwynplaine remained alone. 

The crumbling of his ideas into dust 
was complete. What he thought had 
no semblance to thought. It was a dif- 
fusion, a dispersion — the agony of be- 
ing in the incomprehensible. There 
was in him something like the effort of 
escaping, in a dream. 

Entrance into unknown worlds is not 
an easy matter. 

From the duchess’s letter brought by 
the valet-boy, a series of hours full of 
surprises had begun for Gwynplaine, 
growing less and less unintelligible. 
Up to that moment, he had been in a 
dream, but he saw clearly in it. Now 
he was groping there in the dark. 

He did not think. He did not even 
dream any more. He underwent. 

Suddenly, amid this gloom, there 
was a noise of steps. It was a man’s 
step. The step came from the side 
opposite the corridor, into which the 


duchess had passed out. It drew near, 
and might be heard, dull but piainly 
marked. Notwithstanding his absorp- 
tion, Gwynplaine listened. 

All at once, beyond the silver-gauze 
curtain that the duchess had left up- 
lifted, behind the bed, the door which 
it was easy to figure under the painted 
glass opened wide, and a masculine and 
joyous voice, singing at full pitch, threw 
forward into the mirrored chamber 
this chorus of an old French song ; 

Trois petits gorets 8ur leur fuinier 
Juraient comme des porteurs de chaise. 

t 

Three little pigiwigs on their dunghill 
Were swearing like sedan-chair bearers. 

A man came in. 

The man had a sword at his side, 
and in his hand a feathered hat with 
loop and cockade. He was dressed in a 
splendid naval uniform, covered with 
gold lace. 

Gwynplaine rose to his feet, as 
though a spring had set him up. 

He recognized the man ; and the man 
recognized him. 

From their two mouths, stupefied, 
came forth simultaneously the double 
cry: 

— Gwynplaine ! 

— Tom- Jim- Jack! 

The man with the feathered hat ad- 
vanced upon Gwynplaine, who crossed 
his arms. 

— How come you to be here, Gwyn- 
plaine ? 

— And you, Tom- Jim- Jack, how 
come you here ? 

— Ah! I understand. Josiane! A 
caprice. A mountebank, who is a 
monster, is too fine a thing to be re- 
sisted. You disguised yourself to come 
here, Gwynplaine. 

— And you, too, Tom-Jim-Jack. 

— Gwynplaine, what’s the meaning of 
this lord’s coat ? 

— Tom- Jim- J ack, what’s the meaning 
of this officer’s coat ? 


DISSECTION OF THINGS MAJESTICAL. 


— Gwynplaine, I don’t answer ques- 
tions. 

— Nor I, Tom- Jim- Jack. 

— Gwynplaine, I am not named Tom- 
Jim-Jack. 

— Tom-Jim-Jack, I am not named 
Gwynplaine. 

— Gwynplaine, I am at home here. 

— I am at home here, Tom-Jim-Jack. 

— I forbid you to echo me. You 
have an ironical touch ; hut I have my 
walking-stick. A truce to your paro- 
dies, wretched scoundrel ! 

Gwynplaine turned pale. 

— Scoundrel yourself! And you shall 
satisfy me for this insult. 

— In your booth, as much as you 
please. With fists. 

— Here, and with swords. 

— Friend Gwynplaine, the sword is 
the affair of gentlemen. I fight only 
with men of my own quality. We are 
equal before the fist — unequal before the 
sword. At the Tadcaster Inn, Tom- 
Jim-Jack can box with Gwynplaine. 
At Windsor, it is different. Learn 
this : I am a rear-admiral. 

— And I, I am a peer of England. 

The man, in whom Gwynplaine saw 
Tom-Jim-Jack, burst out into a laugh. 

— Why not king ? In fact, you are 
right. A stage-player is every one of 
his parts. Tell me that you are These- 
us, Duke of Athens. 

— I am a peer of England, and we 
will fight. 

— Gwynplaine, this is stretching it 
out. Don’t trifle with a person who 
can have you whipped. My name is 
Lord David Dirry-Moir. 

— And mine is Lord Clancharlie. 

Lord David broke out into a second 
laugh. 

— Well imagined. Gwynplaine is 
Lord Clancharlie. That is in fact the 
name a man must have, to get posses- 
sion of Josiane. Hark. I forgive you. 
And do you know why? It is be- 
cause we are the two lovers. 


285 

The tapestry over the corridor-door 
was withdrawn, and a voice said : 

— You are the two husbands, my 
lords ! 

Both turned round. 

— Barkilphedro I exclaimed Lord Da- 
vid. 

It was, in truth, Barkilphedro. 

He bowed low to the two lords, with 
a smile. 

Behind him, at some paces, a gentle- 
man with respectful and severe coun- 
tenance was visible. He had a black 
wand in his hand. 

This gentleman advanced, made 
three reverences to Gwynplaine, and 
said to him : 

— My lord, I am the usher of the 
black rod. I came to look for your 
lordship, conformably to her Majesty’s 
orders. 


BOOK vni. 

TEE CAPITOL AND ITS NEIGHBOE- 
HOOD. 

1 . 

DISSECTION OF THINGS MAJESTICAL. 

That fearful exaltation which had, 
already for some hours, diversified its 
dazzling effects for Gwynplaine, and 
which had carried him to Windsor, 
carried him back to London. 

Waking visions followed each other 
before him, in unbroken series. 

There was no shaking them off. As 
one left him, another laid hold of him. 

He had not time to breathe. 

Whoever has seen a juggler has seen 
the sport of fortune. His balls in the 
air, falling, tossed up, and falling again, 
are men in the hands of destiny. 

Things thrown up, and playthings. 

On the evening of that same day, 
Gwynplaine was in a remarkable place. 

He was seated on a bench ornamented 


286 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


with the fleur-de-lys. He had on, over 
his silk clothes, a robe of scarlet velvet 
turned down with white taffeta, with 
an ermine hood, and on his shoulders 
two hands of ermine edged with gold. 

He had around him men of all ages, 
young and old, seated like himself on 
the fleur-de-lys, and like himself dressed 
in ermine and purple. 

Before him, he saw ‘Other men on 
their knees. These men wore gowns 
of black silk. Some of these kneeling 
men were writing. 

Opposite him, at some distance, he 
saw steps, a platform, a canopy, a 
broad sparkling escutcheon between a 
lion and a unicorn, and under this can- 
opy, on this platform, at the top of the 
steps, set with its back against the es- 
cutcheon, a gilt chair surmounted with 
a crown. This was a throne. 

The throne of Great Britain. 

Gwynplaine was a peer himself, in 
the Chamber of the Peers of England. 

After what manner had this intro- 
duction of Gwynplaine into the House 
of Lords taken place ? Let us recount. 

The entire day, from morning till 
evening, from Windsor to London, from 
Corleone Lodge to Westminster Hall, 

’ had been like rising step by step on a 
ladder. At each step, a new surprise. 

He had been conveyed from Wind- 
sor in one of the queen’s carriages, 
with the escort due to a peer. The 
guard given in honor resembles very 
much the guard for safe-keeping. 

That day, the people living on the 
road from Windsor to London, saw, 
galloping along, a cavalcade of gentle- 
men-pensioners of her Majesty ac- 
companying two travelling - carriages 
driven at great speed with the royal 
post-horses.' In the first was seated 
the usher of the black rod, his wand in 
his hand. In the second might be seen 
a large hat with white plumes, over- 
shadowing a countenance that was not 
visible. Who was this that passed 


along? Was it a prince? Was it a 
prisoner? 

It was Gwynplaine. 

He looked like somebody they were 
taking to the Tower of London, unless 
it was somebody they were taking to 
the House of Lords. 

The queen had managed matters in 
the best style. As it concerned the 
future husband of her sister, she had 
given an escort of her own house- 
hold. 

The deputy of the usher of the black 
rod was on horseback at the head of 
the train. 

The usher of the black rod had in 
his carriage, on a low stool, a cushion 
of silver cloth. On this cushion was 
laid a black portfolio stamped with a 
royal crown. 

At Brentford, the last stage before 
reaching London, the two travelling-car- 
riages and their escort came to a halt. 

A carriage with panels in tortoise- 
shell, drawn by four horses, was in 
waiting, with four footmen behind and 
two postilions in front, and a coach- 
man in a wig. Wheels, footboard, 
main-braces, pole, the whole caparison 
of the carriage was gilt. The horses 
were harnessed in silver. 

This gala-coach was of a stately and 
striking pattern, and would have cut a 
magnificent figure among the fifty-one 
celebrated carriages of which Eoubo 
has left us pictures. 

The usher of the black rod alighted ; 
as did also his deputy. 

The deputy of the usher withdrew 
from the low stool in the travelling-car- 
riage the cushion of silver cloth, upon 
which lay the portfolio stamped with 
the crown, held it upon his two hands, 
and stood up behind the usher. 

The usher of the black rod opened 
the door of the coach, which was empty, 
then the door of the travelling-carriage 
in which Gwynplaine was, and, casting 
his eyes downward, obsequiously in- 


DISSECTION OF THINGS MAJESTICAL. 


287 


vited Gwynplaine to take his seat in 
the coach. 

Gwynplaine descended from the trav- 
elling-carriage, and got into the state- 
coach. 

The nsher bearing the rod, and 
the deputy bearing the cushion, entered 
after him, and occupied the lower seat 
provided for pages in the old state- 
coaches. 

The interior was lined with white 
satin trimmed with Binche muslin, with 
fringes and tassels of silver. The top 
displayed a coat-of-arms. 

The postilions of the two travelling- 
carriages, which had just been quitted, 
were dressed in the royal livery. The 
coachman, the postilions, and the lack- 
eys of the carriage which they entered, 
wore a different livery, of great splen- 
dor. 

Gwynplaine, athwart the haze of 
sleep-walking in which he was appar- 
ently overwhelmed, observed this gor- 
geous train of attendants, and asked 
the usher of the black rod : 

— What is this livery ? 

The usher of the black rod re- 
plied: ^ 

— Yours, my lord. 

At that day, the House of Lords must 
needs sit in the evening. Curia erat 
serena^ say the old forms. In England, 
parliamentary life is willingly enough 
made a night life. We know that it 
once happened to Sheridan to begin a 
speech at midnight, and finish it at sun- 
rise. 

The two travelling-carriages went 
back empty to Windsor; the coach, 
in which Gwynplaine was, went in the 
direction of London. 

The tortoise-shell carriage with four 
horses proceeded at a walk from Brent- 
ford to London. The dignity of the 
coachman’s wig required it. 

The ceremonial made its impression 
on Gwynplaine, under the form of this 
pompous coachman. 


These delays were, besides, to all ap- 
pearance intentional. The probable 
reason for them will be seen a little 
further on. 

It was not yet night, but it wanted 
little of it, when the tortoise-shell car- 
riage stopped before the King’s Gate, a 
heavy low-arched portal, between two 
turrets, which led from Whitehall to 
W estminster. 

The cavalcade of gentlemen-pension- 
ers grouped themselves around the car- 
riage. 

One of the footmen from behind 
jumped down upon the pavement, and 
opened the door. 

The usher of the black rod, followed 
by his deputy bearing the cushion, 
got out of the carriage and said to 
Gwynplaine : 

— My lord, be pleased to alight. 
Your lordship will keep your hat on 
your head. 

Gwynplaine was dressed, under his 
travelling-cloak, in a suit of silk which 
he had not taken off since the previous 
evening. He did not wear a sword. 

He left his cloak in the carriage. 

Under the vaulted carriage-way of 
the King’s Gate there was a small side- 
door, at an elevation of a few steps. 

In matters of ceremony, it is a mark 
of respect to walk first. 

The usher of the black rod, having 
behind him his deputy, marched in 
front. 

Gwynplaine followed. 

They mounted the stair, and entered 
through the side-door. 

Some moments after, they were in a 
large round chamber, with a pillar in 
the centre, at the bottom of a turret, 
a ground-floor room, lighted by narrow 
ogive windows like the lancets of an 
apse, which must have been dark even 
at high-noon. Lack of light often con- 
tributes to solemnity. Gloom is ma- 
jestic. 

In this apartment, thirteen men were 


288 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


standing. Three in front, six in the 
second row, and four behind. 

One of the first three wore a coat of 
pink velvet; and the other two like- 
wise pink coats, but of satin. All three 
had the arms of England embroidered 
on the shoulder. 

The six of the second row were 
dressed in dalmatic vestments of black 
watered silk, each one with a different 
blazon on his breast. 

The last four, all in black watered 
silk, were distinguished one from the 
other, the first by a blue cape, the sec- 
ond by a scarlet St. George on his 
breast, the third by crimson crosses on 
his breast and on his back, the fourth 
by a collar of black fur called sable’s 
skin. All were in wigs, were bare- 
headed, and wore swords. 

Their faces were scarcely distinguish- 
able in the dim light. They could not 
see Gwynplaine’s face. 

The usher of the black rod raised 
his wand, and said : 

— My Lord Eermain Clancharlie, 
Baron Clancharlie^ and Hunkerville, I, 
usher of the black rod, first officer of 
the presence-chamber, commit your 
lordship to Garter King-at-arms of 
England. 

The personage in the velvet coat, 
leaving the others behind him, bowed 
down low before Gwynplaine, and 
said: 

— My Lord Eermain Clancharlie, I 
am Garter, first King-at-arms of Eng- 
land. I am the officer appointed and 
crowned by his Grace the Duke of Nor- 
folk, hereditary earl-marshal. I have 
sworn obedience to the king, to the 
peers, and to the knights of the garter. 
On the day of my coronation, when the 
Earl-Marshal of England poured a gob- 
let of wine on my head, I solemnly 
promised to be serviceable to the no- 
bility, to shun the company of people 
of bad repute, to excuse rather than 
censure people of quality, and to be- 


friend widows and virgins. I am 
charged with the regulation of the 
ceremonies at the obsequies of peers, 
and I have the care and custody of 
their armorial bearings. I place my- 
self at your lordship’s orders. 

The first of the two others in satin 
coats made an obeisance, and said : 

— My lord, I am Clarencieux, second 
King-at-arms of England. I am the 
officer who regulates the obsequies of 
nobles below the rank of peers. I 
place myself at your lordship’s orders. 

The other man in the satin coat 
bowed, and said : 

— My lord, I am Norroy, third King- 
at-arms of England. I place myself at 
your lordship’s orders. 

The six of the second row, statue- 
like, and without bowing, advanced a 
step. 

The first, on Gwynplaine’s right, 
said : 

— My lord, we are the six Dukes-at- 
arms of England. I am York. 

Then each one of the heralds or 
dukes-at-arms took the word in turn, 
and announced himself : 

— lam Lancaster. 

— I am Kichmond. 

— I am Chester. 

— lam Somerset. 

— I am Windsor. 

The blazons which they had on the 
breast were those of the counties and 
towns, of which they bore the names. 

The four, who were dressed in black, 
behind the heralds, kept silence. 

Garter King-at-arms pointed them 
out to Gwynplaine, and said : 

— My lord, these are the four pur- 
suivants-at-arms. — Blue Mantle. 

The man in the blue cape bowed his 
head. 

— Red Dragon. 

The man of the St. George bowed. 

— Red Cross. 

The man with the crimson crosses 
bowed. 


DISSECTION OF THINGS MAJESTICAL. 


289 


— Portcullis. 

The man with the sable furs 
bowed. 

At a signal from King-at-arms, the 
first of the pursuivants, Blue Mantle, 
came forward and took, from the hands 
of the deputy of the usher, the cushion 
of silver cloth and the portfolio stamped 
with a crown. 

And King-at-arms said to the usher 
of the black rod : 

— So be it. I commit to your honor 
the reception of his lordship. 

These details of etiquette, and others 
which followed, were the ancient cere- 
monial prior to Henry VIII., which 
Anne endeavored, for a time, to revive. 
ISrothing of the kind is in vogue to day. 
For all that, the House of Lords thinks 
itself immutable ; and, if the immemo- 
rial exists anywhere, it is there. 

It changes nevertheless; E pur si 
muove. 

What has become, for instance, of 
the May-pole, that mast of May, which 
the city of London set up on the pas- 
sage of the peers going to Parliament ? 
The last one that made a figure was 
planted in 1713. The May-pole has 
since disappeared. Disuse. 

Appearance is immobility ; reality is 
change. Thus, take this title, Albe- 
marle. It seems eternal. Under this 
title have passed six families, Odo, 
Mandeville, Bethune, Plantagenet, 
Beauchamp, Monck. Under the title 
of Leicester, there have succeeded each 
other five different names, Beaumont, 
Brewose, Dudley, Sydney, Coke. Un- 
der Lincoln, six ; under Pembroke, sev- 
en, etc. Families change, under titles 
that do not vary. The superficial his- 
torian believes in immutability ; at root, 
nothing endures. Man can be only the 
wave. The billow is humanity. 

That is a pride with aristocracies, 
which with women is a humiliation — 
the growing old ; but women and 
aristocracies nourish the' same de- 
19 


lusion, that they may preserve them- 
selves. 

It is probable that the House of 
Lords will not recognize itself in what 
you have just read and in what you are 
going to read, any more than a pretty 
woman of other days, who desires not 
to have wrinkles. The mirror is an 
old offender, and has made up its mind 
about it. 

To draw a likeness is the whole duty 
of the historian. 

King-at-arms addressed himself to 
Gwynplaine. 

— Will you follow me, my lord ? 

He added : 

— They will salute you. Your lord- 
ship wiU only raise the brim of your hat. 

And they moved in procession tow- 
ard the door at the lower end of the cir- 
cular apartment. 

The usher of the black rod led the 
way. 

Then Blue Mantle, bearing the cush- 
ion; then king-at-arms; behind king- 
at-arms was Gwynplaine, his hat on his 
head. 

The others, kings-at-arms, heralds, 
pursuivants, remained in the circular 
apartment. 

Gwynplaine, preceded by the usher 
of the black rod, and under conduct 
of king-at-arms, pursued from hall to 
hall an itinerary that it would be im- 
possible to retrace to-day, the old abode 
of the Parliament of England having 
been destroyed. 

Among others he crossed the Gothic 
state apartment, where had occurred 
that fatal meeting between James II. 
and Monmouth, and which had wit- 
nessed the unavailing prostration of 
the cowardly nephew before the fero- 
cious uncle. Around the chamber were 
hung upon the wall in chronological 
order, with their names and coats-of- 
arms, nine full-length portraits of an- 
cient peers: Lord Nausladron, 1305 ; 
Lord'Baliol, 1306; Lord Benestede, 


290 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


1314; Lord Cantilupe, 1356; Lord 
Montbegen, 1357 ; Lord Tibotot, 1372 ; 
Lord Zoucli of Oodner, 1615 ; Lord 
Belle- Aqua, without date ; Lord Ha- 
wen and Surrey, Count of Blois, with- 
out date. 

Night having come on, there were 
lamps at intervals in the galleries. 
Copper "chandeliers containing wax- 
candles were lighted in the halls,' dim- 
ly illuminated like the side aisles of a 
church. 

None but officials were encountered 
there. 

In a chamber, crossed by the proces- 
sion, stood, with head respectfully in- 
clined, the four clerks of the signet, and 
the clerk of state papers. 

In another was the honorable Philip 
Sydenham, knight banneret. Lord of 
Brympton in Somerset. The knight 
banneret is a knight created in bat- 
tle, under the royal standard dis- 
played. 

In another, was the oldest baronet 
of England, Sir Edmund Bacon of Suf- 
folk, heir of Sir Nicholas, and consti- 
tuted primiLS laronetorum Anglice. 
Sir Edmund had behind him his ar- 
morer bearing his arquebuse, and his 
equerry bearing the arms of Ulster, the 
baronets being the born defenders of 
the county of Ulster in Ireland. 

In another was the chancellor of 
the exchequer, attended by his four ac- 
countants, and two deputies of the lord- 
chamberlain charged with assessing 
the land-tax. In addition there was 
the master of the mint, having in his 
open hand a pound sterling, struck, as 
was the custom for the pounds, in a 
mill. These eight personages made 
obeisance to the new lord. 

On entering a corridor, lined with 
matting, which was the means of com- 
munication from the Lower House to 
the Upper House, Gwynplaine was sa- 
luted by Sir Thomas Mansell de Mar- 
gam, controller of the queen’s house- 


hold and member of Parliament for 
Glamorgan ; and, on leaving it, by a 
deputation of “ one out of two ” of the 
barons of the Cinque Ports, drawn up 
on the right and on the left, four and 
four, the Cinque Ports being not five but 
eight. William Ashburnham saluted 
him for Hastings, Matthew Aylmer for 
Dover, Josias Burchett for Sandwich, 
Sir Philip Boteler for Hythe, John 
Brewer for New Kunmey, Edward 
Southwell for the town of Rye, James 
Hayes for the town of Winchelsea, and 
George Nailor for the town of Sea- 
ford. 

King - at - arms, when Gwynplaine 
came to return the salutation, reminded 
him of the proper ceremonial in a low 
tone: 

— Only the brim of the hat, my lord. 

Gwynplaine did as had been pointed 
out to him. 

He arrived at the Painted Chamber 
where there are no paintings, excep,t 
some figures of saints, among others St. 
Edward, under the arches of the long 
ogive windows, cut in two by the floor, 
whereof Westminster Hall had the 
lower portion and the Painted Chamber 
the upper. 

On the hither side of the wooden 
barrier, which ran from one end to the 
other of the Painted Chamber, were 
standing the three secretaries of state, 
men of importance. The first of these 
officers had under his charge the south 
of England, Ireland, and the colonies, 
besides France, Switzerland, Italy, 
Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. The sec- 
ond governed the north of England, 
with the superintendence of the Low 
Countries, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, 
Poland, and Muscovy. The third, a 
Scotchman, had Scotland. The first two 
were Englishmen. One of them was 
the Honorable Rol^ert Harley, member 
of Parliament for the town of New 
Radnor. A Scotch deputy, Mungo Gra- 
ham, Esquire, a relative of the Duke 


DISSECTION OF THINGS MAJESTICAL. 


291 


of Montrose, was present. All bowed 
to Gwynplaine in silence. 

Gwynplaine toucbed tbe brim of bis 
hat. 

The cnstodian of the barrier raised 
on its hinge the wooden arm which gave 
admission to the lower end of the 
Painted Chamber, where there was the 
long table covered with green cloth re- 
served for the lords only. 

There was on this table a branched 
candlestick lighted. 

Gwynplaine, preceded by the usher 
of the black rod. Blue Mantle, and Gar- 
ter, entered this privileged compart- 
ment. 

The custodian of the barrier closed 
the entrance behind Gwynplaine. 

King-at-arms, as soon as they had 
crossed the barrier, stopped. 

The Painted Chamber was spa- 
cious. 

At the lower end might be seen, 
standing beneath the royal escutcheon 
which was between the two windows, 
two old men dressed in robes of red 
velvet, with two bands of ermine edged 
with gold lace over the shoulder, and 
hats with white plumes upon their wigs. 
Through the openings in their robes, 
you caught sight of their silken coats 
and the hilts of their swords. 

Behind them, there stood motionless 
a man dressed in black watered silk, 
bearing aloft a great gold mace sur- 
mounted by a crowned lion. 

This was the mace-bearer of the peers 
of England. 

The lion was their insignia. Et les 
lions ce sont les Barons et li Per says 
the manuscript chronicle of Bertrand 
Du Guesclin. 

King-at-arms pointed out these two 
personages in velvet robes to Gwyn- 
plaine, and whispered to him : 

— My lord, these are your equals. 
You will return their salutation exact- 
ly as it is made to you. These two 
lordships here present are two barons, 


and your sponsors designated by the 
lord-chancellor. They are very old 
and nearly blind. They are to intro- 
duce you in the Chamber of Peers. The 
first is Charles Mildmay, Lord Fitzwal- 
ter, sixth lord of the bench of barons ; 
the second is Augustus Arundel, Lord 
Arundel of Trerice, thirty-eighth lord 
of the bench of barons. 

King-at-arms, advancing a step tow- 
ard the two old men, raised his 
voice : 

— Eermain Clancharlie, Baron Clan- 
charlie, Baron Hunkerville, Marquis de 
Corleone in Sicily, salutes your lord- 
ships. 

The two lords raised their hats above 
their heads at arm’s length, and then 
recovered. 

Gwynplaine saluted them in the same 
manner. 

The usher of the black rod advanced, 
then Blue Mantle, then Garter. 

The mace-bearer placed himself in 
front of Gwynplaine, and the two lords 
on either side. Lord Fitzwalter on his 
right and Lord Arundel of Trerice on 
his left. Lord Arundel was much 
broken, and the more aged of the two. 
He died the’ following year, leaving to 
his grandson John, a minor, his title, 
which, it maybe added, became extinct 
in 1768. 

The procession emerged from the 
Painted Chamber and entered a pilas- 
tered gallery, where were stationed as 
sentinels, alternately from pilaster to 
pilaster, the English pikemen and the 
Scotch halberdiers. 

The Scotch halberdiers were that 
magnificent corps, with bare legs, 
worthy of confronting, later, at Fon- 
tenoy, the French cavalry and the 
cuirassiers of the king, to whom their 
colonel said, “ Gentlemen my masters, 
take care of your hats, we are about to 
have the honor of charging.” 

The captain of the pikemen and the 
captain of the halberdiers made a salute 


292 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


to Gwynplaine, and tlie two lords spon- 
sors, with the sword. The soldiers sa- 
luted — the one company with the pike 
and the other with the halberd. 

At the foot of the gallery blazed a 
grand portal, so magnificent that the 
two folding-doors seemed plates of gold. 
Two men stood like statues, one on 
either side of the portal. They might 
be recognized by their livery as the 
door-keepers. 

At a short distance before it reached 
this doorway, the gallery spread itself 
out, and there was a circular recess 
with glazed windows. 

In this recess was seated in an arm- 
chair, immeasurably high-backed, a 
personage rendered august by the am- 
plitude of his robe and of his wig. 
This was William Cowper, Lord-chan- 
cellor of England. 

It is an advantage to be more infirm 
than the king. William Cowper was 
short-sighted, Anne was also; but in 
less degree. This purblindness of Wil- 
liam Cowper was pleasing to the short- 
sightedness of her Majesty, and caused 
him to be chosen by the queen as chan- 
cellor and keeper of the royal con- 
science. 

William Cowper had a thin upper- 
lip and a thick under-lip, a sign of quasi- 
amiability. 

The recess was lighted by a lamp 
from the ceiling. 

The lord-chancellor, sitting solemn 
in his high-backed arm-chair, had on 
his right a table at which was seated 
the clerk of the crown, and on his left 
a table at which was seated the clerk 
of Parliament. 

Each of these two clerks had before 
him an open record and an inkstand. 

Behind the arm-chair of the lord- 
chancellor stood the mace-bearer, hold- 
ing up the crowned mace. Also the^ 
train-bearer and the purse-bearer, in 
big wigs. All these offices still exist. 

Upon a side-table near the arm- 


’ chair there was a sword with a hilt of 
gold, a scabbard, and a belt of fiame- 
colored velvet. 

Behind the clerk of the crown, stood 
an officer holding out extended, in both 
hands, a robe, which was the corona- 
tion-robe. 

Behind the clerk of Parliament, an- 
other officer displayed another robe, 
which was the state Parliament-robe. 

These robes, both of crimson velvet 
turned down with white taffeta, with 
two bands of ermine braided with gold 
on the shoulder, were alike, except that 
the coronation-robe had a broader er- 
mine hood. 

A third officer, who was the libra- 
rian, carried, on a cushion of Flemish 
leather, the red-book, a smaU volume 
bound in red morocco, containing a list 
of the peers and the commons, besides 
some blank pages and a pencil, which 
it was the custorn to present to each 
new member entering Parliament# 

The march in procession, which 
closed with Gwynplaine between the 
two peers his sponsors, stopped before 
the arm-chair of the lord-chancellor. 

The two lords sponsors took off their 
hats. Gwynplaine did the same. 

King-at-arms received from the hands 
of Blue Mantle the cushion of silver 
cloth, fell on his knees, and presented 
the black portfolio on the cushion to 
the lord-chanceUor. 

The lord-chancellor took the port- 
folio and gave it to the clerk of Parlia- 
ment. The clerk received it cere- 
moniously, and then sat down again. 

The clerk of Parliament opened the 
portfolio and rose. 

The portfolio contained the two cus- 
tomary messages ; the royal patent ad- 
dressed to the House of Lords, and the 
writ of summons addressed to the new 
peer. 

The clerk, standing, read aloud the 
two messages with decorous delibera- 
tion. 


IMPAETIALITY. 


293 


The writ of snminons, addressed to 
Lord Fermain Clancharlie, concluded 
with the usual formula: “We strictly 
enjoin you, under the faitli and alle- 
giance you owe us, to take your place 
in person among the prelates and peers 
sitting in our Parliament at Westmin- 
ster, to the end that you give us your 
advice, in all honor and conscience, 
upon the affairs of the kingdom and the 
church.” 

The reading of these messages over, 
the lord-chancellor raised his voice : 

— Act certified to the crown. Lord 
Fermain Clancharlie, your lordship re- 
nounces transuhstantiation, the wor- 
ship of saints, and the mass ? 

Gwynplaine bowed his head. 

— Act certified, said the lord-chan- 
cellor, and the clerk of Parliament re- 
plied : 

— nis lordship has taken the test- 
oath. 

The lord-chancellor added : 

— My Lord Fermain Clancharlie, you 
can take your seat among us. 

— So be it, said the two spon- 
sors. 

King-at-arms rose, took the sword 
from the side-table, and buckled the 
belt around Gwynplaine’s waist. 

“This done,” say the old Morman 
charters, “the peer takes his sword, 
ascends the high seats, and is present 
at the session.” 

Gwynplaine heard some one behind 
him, who said to him : 

— I invest your lordship with the 
Parliament-robe. 

And at the same time the ofllcer who 
spoke to him, and who carried this 
robe, put it over him, and tied around 
his neck the black ribbon of the ermine 
hood. 

Gwynplaine, at this moment — the 
purple robe on his back and the gold- 
mounted sword at his side — ^looked just 
like the two lords, whom he had on his 
right and on his left. 


The librarian presented him the red- 
book, and put it for him in his vest- 
pocket. 

King-at-arms whispered to him : 

— My lord, on entering, you will 
salute the royal chair. 

The royal chair is the throne. 

Meanwhile the two clerks were writ- 
ing, each at his table, the one in the 
registry of the crown, the other in the 
registry of Parliament. 

Both, the one after the other, the 
clerk of the crown first, carried their 
books to the lord-chancellor, who 
signed them. 

After having signed the two regis- 
tries, the lord-chancellor rose : 

— Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Baron 
Clancharlie, Baron Hunkerville, Mar- 
quis of Corleone in Italy, welcome 
among your peers, the lords spiritual 
and temporal of Great Britain ! 

The two sponsors of Gwynplaine 
touched him on the shoulder. He 
turned round. 

And the great gilded portal at the 
end of the gallery opened its folding- 
doors. 

It was the portal of the Chamber of 
Peers of England. 

But thirty-six hours had elapsed 
since Gwynplaine, surrounded by a dif- 
ferent escort, had seen opening before 
him the iron gate of Southwark jail ! 

Terrifying rapidity of aU the clouds 
above his head ; clouds that were 
events, ranidity that was a carrying by 
storm. 

11 . 

IMPARTIALITY. 

The creation of a power equal to 
that of a king, and called the peerage, 
was a useful fiction in a barbarous age. 
This rudimentary political expedient 
produced different results in Franco 
and in England. In France, the peer 
was a sham king ; in England, he was 


294 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


a real prince. ISTot so grand as in 
France, but more substantial. It might 
be said : less, but worse. 

The peerage originated in France. 
The epoch of its birth is uncertain; 
under Charlemagne according to le- 
gend, under Kobert the Wise according 
to history. History is no more sure of 
its assertions than legend is. Favin 
writes : “ The King of France wished 
to attract to him the grandees of his 
dominions by this magnificent title of 
peers, as if they were his equals.” 

The peerage soon branched off, and 
passed from France into England. 

The English peerage was a great 
fact, almost a great thing. It had the 
Saxon wittenagemot for a precedent. 
The Danish tJiane and the Korman va- 
'ccmeuT united in the baron. Baron is 
the same word as translated into 
Spanish by mron^ and signifying pre- 
eminently Man. As early as 1075, 
the barons made the king sensible of 
their existence. Such a king too ! It 
was William the Conqueror. In 1086, 
they laid the foundation of the feudal 
system ; this foundation was the Dooms- 
day Book. Under John Lackland, a 
conflict arose ; the French nobility as- 
sumed a superiority over Great Britain, 
and the French peerage summoned the 
King of England before its bar. The 
English barons were indignant. At 
the consecration of Philip Augustus, 
the King of England, as Duke of Nor- 
mandy, carried the first square banner, 
and the Duke of Guyenne the second. 
Against this king, vassal of the for- 
eigner, “ the lords’ war ” breaks out. 
The barons impose on poor King John 
the Great Charter, whence springs the 
House of Lords. The Pope takes the 
king’s side, and excommunicates the 
lords. This is in 1215, and the Pope is 
Innocent III., who wrote the Veni 
Sanete Spiritus, and sent to John Lack- 
land the four cardinal virtues under the 
form of four golden rings. The lords 


hold out. The combat is long, destined 
to last several generations. Pembroke 
struggles. 1248 is the year of the 
“ Provisions of Oxford.” Twenty-four 
barons put limits on the king, discuss 
liim, and call in a knight from each 
county to take part in the enlarged 
quarrel. This was the dawn of the 
Commons. Later, the lords joined to 
themselves two citizens from each town 
and two burgesses from each borough. 
This was why, till Elizabeth’s time, the 
peers were judges of the validity of 
elections to the Commons. From their 
jurisdiction sprang the adage: “The 
deputies should be chosen without the 
three P’s, sine Prece, sine Pretio, sine 
PoeuloP Which did not prevent rot- 
ten boroughs. In 1293 the French 
court of peers still considered the 
English king subject to its jurisdic- 
tion ; and Philip the Fair cited Edward 
I. to appear before him. Edward I. 
was the king who ordered his son to 
boil his body after death, and carry 
his bones to the war. Under the 
pressure of royal caprices, the lords felt 
the need of strengthening the Parlia- 
ment ; they divided it into two Cham- 
bers. The Upper and the Lower. The 
lords arrogantly maintained their su- 
premacy. “ Should it happen that any 
one of the Commons is so hardy as to 
speak disparagingly of the Lords, he is 
called to the bar to be reprimanded and 
sometimes he is sent to the Tower.” * 
The same distinction in voting. In the 
House of Lords the vote is taken sep- 
arately, commencing with the last bar- 
on, who is called le putne. Each peer 
when called replies content^ or not con- 
tent. The Commons vote all together, 
in a mass, by yes or no. The Commons 
accuse ; the Peers judge. The Peers, 
through contempt for figures, leave to 
the Commons (destined to make good 
use of it) the guardianship of the ex- 

* Chamberlayne, “Present State of England,” 
vol. ii., part ii., cbap. iv., 1688. 


IMPARTIALITY. 


295 


chequer, so called, according to some, 
from the table-cloth which represented 
a checker-board, according to others 
fi’om the drawers of the old cupboard 
in which the treasure of the kings of 
England was kept behind an iron grat- 
ing. From the end of the thirteenth 
century dates the annual register, the 
“Year Book.” In the War of the two 
Roses, the height of the Lords is felt, 
sometimes on the side of John of Gaunt, 
Duke of Lancaster, sometimes on that 
of Edmund, Duke of York. English 
feudalism gave a fulcrum, openly or se- 
cretly, to TTat Tyler, the Lollards, 
Warwick the king-maker, all that 
mother-anarchy from which emancipa- 
tion was to spring. The Lords are wise- 
ly jealous of the throne ; to be jealous 
is to watch; they circumscribe the royal 
initiative, limit the cases of high-treason, 
raise up false Richards against Henry 
IV., make themselves umpires, deter- 
mine the question of the three crowns 
between tbe Duke of York and Marga- 
ret of Anjou, raise armies at need and 
have their own battles, Shrewsbury, 
Tewkesbury, Saint Albans, now lost, 
now won. Already, in the thir- 
teenth century, they had gained the 
victory of Lewes, and had driven 
out of the kingdom the king’s four 
brothers, bastard sons of Isabella and 
Earl March, all four usurers who plun- 
dered Christians by means of Jews ; 
princes on one side, swindlers on the 
other, a species which has since reap- 
peared, but was in small repute at that 
time. Till the fifteenth century, traces 
of the Herman duke are visible in the 
King of England, and the acts of Par- 
liament are written in French. From 
Henry VII.’s time they are written in 
English, by the will of the Lords. Eng- 
land — Breton under Hther Pendragon, 
Roman under Cassar, Saxon under the 
heptarchy, Danish under Harold, Her- 
man after William— becomes, thanks to 
the Lords, English. Then she becomes 


Anglican. It is . a great source of 
strength to have your religion at home. 
A foreign pope draws out the national 
life. A Mecca is a gigantic sucking- 
fish. In 1534, London dismisses Rome ; 
the peerage adopts the Reformation, 
and the Lords accept Luther. This an- 
swer to the excommunication of 1215 
suited Henry YIII. ; but in other re- 
spects the Lords impeded him. The 
House of Lords, before Henry YIII., 
was like a bull-dog before a bear. 
When Wolsey steals Whitehall from 
the nation, when Henry YIII. steals 
Whitehall from Wolsey, who growl ? 
Four lords — Darcey of Chichester, 
Saint- John of Bletso, and (two Hor- 
man names) Mountjoye and Mount- 
eagle. The king usurps. The peerage 
encroaches. Hereditary power has an 
element of incorruptibility ; hence the 
insubordination of the Lords. The 
barons make a disturbance before 
Elizabeth herself. The executions 
of Durham are the result. The gown 
of the tyrant is stained with blood. 
Elizabeth was a headsman’s block un- 
der a farthingale. Elizabeth calls a 
Parliament as seldom as she can, and 
reduces the House of Lords to sixty- 
five members, among whom was only 
one marquis (W estminster), and not a 
single duke. Meanwhile, the Kings of 
France felt the same jealousy, and were 
efiecting the same elimination. Under 
Henri III. there were but eight real 
dukedoms left, and the king was very 
much displeased that the Baron of 
Mantes, the Baron of Coucy, the Baron 
of Coulommiers, the Baron of Cha- 
teauneuf-en-Thimerais, the Baron of 
La Fer«-en-Lardenois, the Baron of 
Mortagne, and a few more, maintained 
themselves barons and peers of France. 
In England, the crown gladly let peer- 
ages die out ; in Anne’s time, to take 
only one example, the extinctions since 
the twelfth century had come to make 
a total of five hundred and sixty-five 


296 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


peerages abolished. The War of the 
Roses had commenced that extermina- 
tion of dukes, which Mary Tudor com- 
pleted with the axe. It was decapitat- 
ing the nobility. Cutting off its dukes 
was cutting off its head. Good policy, 
doubtless; but bribing is better than 
killing. James I. understood this. He 
made a duke of his favorite Villiers, 
who had made him a pig.* Trans- 
formation of the feudal duke into the 
courtier duke. We shall have a swarm 
of the new brood. Charles II. will 
make duchesses of two of his mis- 
tresses, Barbara of Southampton and 
Louisa de Qu^rouel. Under Anne, 
twenty-five dukes, three of whom for- 
eigners, Cumberland, Cambridge, and 
Schonberg. Are these courtly pro- 
ceedings, invented by James I., suc- 
cessful? No. The House of Lords 
feels itself managed by intrigue, and is 
irritated. It is angry with J ames I. ; 
it is angry with Charles I., who, let us 
say incidentally, may have helped to 
kill his father, as Mary de’ Medici may 
have helped to kill her husband. There 
is a break between Charles I. and the 
peerage. The Lords, who, under James 
I., had summoned to their bar specula- 
tion in the person of Bacon, under 
Charles I. tried treason in the person 
of Strafford. They had condemned 
Bacon ; they condemn Strafford. One 
bad lost his honor, the other lost his 
life. Strafford’s execution was a pre- 
liminary decapitation of Charles I. The 
Lords assisted the Comnions. The king 
holds a Parliament at Oxford ; the rev- 
olution holds one in London; forty- 
three peers go with the king, twenty- 
two with the ' republic. From this 
acknowledgment of the people by the 
lords springs the HU of rights^ an out- 
line of our rights of man^ a dim shad- 
ow thrown from the depths of the fu- 
ture, by the French Revolution, upon 
the English. 


Such were the services of the peer- 
age. Involuntary, it is true. And 
dearly paid, for this peerage is a terri- 
ble parasite. Still, considerable. The 
despotic work of Louis XI., Richelieu, 
Louis XIY., the construction of a Sul- 
tan, general abasement taken for equal- 
ity, the bastinado administered by the 
sceptre, the masses levelled in subjuga- 
tion — all this Oriental structure, raised 
in France, was prevented in England 
by the peers. They made of their aris- 
tocracy a wall, hemming in the king on 
one side, sheltering the people on the 
other. They atone for their arrogance 
to the people, by their insolence to the 
king. Simon, Earl of Leicester, said to 
Henry III., “ King, you lie ! ” The 
peers impose servitudes on the crown ; 
they touch the king in his sensitive 
point, hunting. Every nobleman who 
passes through a royal park has the 
right to kill a deer in it. The noble- 
man is at home in the king’s palace. 
It is owing to the nobility, that the 
king was provided for in the Tower of 
London at the same rate as a peer, 
twelve pounds sterling a week. Nay, 
more. It is owing to the nobles, that 
the king could be uncrowned. The 
Lords turned out John Lackland, de- 
graded Edward II., deposed Richard 
II., shattered Henry VI., and made 
Cromwell possible. What a possible 
Louis XIY. in Charles I. ! Thanks to 
Cromwell, it remained latent. Besides, 
let us say here, Cromwell himself as- 
pired to the peerage, a fact which no 
historian has noticed ; this was why he 
married Elizabeth Bourchier, descend- 
ant and heiress of a certain Cromwell, 
Lord Bourchier, whose peerage had be- 
come extinct in 1471, and of a Bour- 
chier, Lord Robesart, another peerage 
extinct in 1429. Growing with the 
formidable growth of events, he found 
it shorter to rule by suppressing the 
king, than by reclaiming the peerage. 
The forms of the peers, sometimes 


* Villiers used to call James I. your Xfigshlp. 


IMPAETIALITY. 


297 


threatening, included the king. The 
two sword-bearers of the Tower, stand- 
ing, axe on shoulder, at the right and 
left of the accused peer who appeared 
at the bar, were as much for the king 
as for any other lord. During five cen- 
turies, the old House of Lords had a 
plan, and followed it steadily. We may 
note its days of negligence and weak- 
ness, as, for instance, that singular oc- 
casion when it allowed itself to be se- 
duced by the shipload of cheeses, hams, 
and Greek wines, which Julius II. sent 
it. The English aristocracy was rest- 
less, haughty, ungovernable, always on 
the watch, patriotically defiant. At 
the end of the seventeenth century, by 
the tenth act of the year 1694, it took 
from the borough of Stockbridge, in 
Southampton, the right of representa- 
tion, and forced the Commons to annul 
the election in that borough, because it 
was contaminated by papist fraud. It had 
imposed the test-oath on James, Duke 
of York; and, on his refusal, excluded 
him from the throne. Nevertheless, he 
reigned ; but the Lords finally caught 
him again and drove him out. During 
its long existence, this aristocracy has 
had some instinct of progress. A cer- 
tain amount of appreciable light has al- 
ways emanated from it, except near its 
end, which is now approaching. Un- 
der J ames II., it maintained in the Low- 
er House the proportion of three hun- 
dred and forty-six burgesses to ninety- 
two knights; the sixteen barons of 
courtesy of the Cinque Ports were more 
than counterbalanced by the fifty citi- 
zens of the twenty-five towns. Al- 
though a great source of corruption and 
very selfish, the aristocracy were sin- 
gularly impartial in certain cases. It 
has been hardly judged. History has 
Lept its best treatment for the Com- 
mons. The justice of the proceeding 
may be questioned. We consider that 
the Lords played a grand part. Oligarchy 
is independence in the stage of barba- 


rism ; but it is independence. Look at 
Poland, nominally a kingdom, really a 
republic. The peers of England sus- 
pected the throne, and kept it in ward. 
On many occasions the Lords knew how 
to resist, better than the Commons. 
They gave check to the king. Thus in 
the remarkable year 1694, triennial 
Parliaments, rejected by the Commons, 
because William III. did not like them, 
were voted by the Peers. William III., 
in a rage, took from the Earl of Bath 
the castle of Pendennis, and deprived 
Viscount Mordaunt of all his ofllces. 
The House of Lords was the republic 
of Venice, at the heart of English roy- 
alty. To reduce the king to a doge — 
such was its aim, and it added to the 
nation all that it took from the king. 

The crown understood this, and hated 
the peerage. Both sides strove to di- 
minish each other’s power. These mutual 
diminutions were an increase and a 
benefit to the people. The two blind 
powers, monarchy and oligarchy, did 
not perceive that they were working 
for a third, democracy. What happi- 
ness it was for the court, in the last 
century, to be able to hang a peer. Lord 
Ferrers! 

To be sure, he was hanged in a silken 
cord, out of deference. 

A peer of Prance would not have 
been hanged. Such was the lofty re- 
mark of the Duke of Eichelieu. No 
doubt. He would have been beheaded, 
which is still more deferential. Montmo- 
rency Tancarville used to sign himself 
Peer of France and of England^ thus 
throwing back the English peerage to 
the second place. The peers of France 
were more lofty and less powerful, 
holding to rank more than authority, 
and to precedence rather than sway. 
Between them and the lords was the 
shade of difference, which there is be- 
tween vanity and pride. For the 
French peers, to take rank of foreign 
princes, to have the precedence of Span- 


298 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND 


ish grandees, to go before patricians of 
Venice, to make the French marshals, 
the Constable and the Admiral of France 
(were he even Count of Toulouse and 
son of Louis XIV.) sit on the lower 
benches of the Parliament, to distinguish 
between male and female duchies, to 
maintain the interval between a simple 
earldom like Armagnac or Albret, and 
a peerage-earldom like Evreux, to have 
the right of wearing, in certain cases, 
the blue ribbon or the golden fleece at 
the age of twenty-flve, to counterbal- 
ance the Due de la Tr^moille, the oldest 
peer of the palace, by the Due d’Uzds, 
the oldest peer in Parliament, to 
claim as many pages and horses for 
their coach as an elector, to be called 
Momeigneur by the first president, to 
discuss whether the Due de Maine had 
peer’s rank as Comte d’Eu, after 1458 
to cross the great chamber diagonally 
or along the sides — that was their great 
business. The great business of the 
lords was the act of navigation, the 
test act, the dominion of the seas, the 
expulsion of the Stuarts, the war with 
France. Here, etiquette before all; 
there, empire before all. The peers of 
England had the booty, the peers of 
France the shadow. 

In short, the English House of Lords 
was a starting-point. This is an im- 
mense step in civilization. It had the hon- 
or of beginning the national life. It was 
the first incarnation of popular unity. 
English resistance, that vague but om- 
nipotent force, had its birth in the 
House of Lords. The barons, by a se- 
ries of assaults on the prince, sketched 
out his final dethronement. The House 
of Lords nowadays is a little surprised 
and sad at what it has done unwilling- 
ly and unwittingly. All the more, be- 
cause it is irrevocable. What are con- 
cessions? Eestitutions. And the na- 
tions know it. “ I grant,” says the king. 
“ I get back my own,” say the people. 
The House of Lords thought it was 


creating privileges for peers ; it produced 
rights for citizens. The vulture of aris- 
tocracy hatched the eagle’s egg of lib- 
erty. 

The egg is now broken ; the eagle 
flies aloft, the vulture is expiring. 

England grows in greatness, while 
her aristocracy is in its last agony. 

But let us be just to the aristocracy. 
It was a balance and a barrier ; a coun- 
terpoise to royalty, an obstacle to des- 
potism. 

Let us bury it with all the honors. 

III. 

THE OLD HALL. 

Neae Westminster Abbey was an old 
Norman palace, which had been burnt 
in Henry VIII. ’s time. Two wings of 
it remained. Edward VI. placed the 
Chamber of Lords in one, and the 
Chamber of the Commons in the other. 

Neither the two wings, nor the two 
chambers, now exist. It has aU been 
rebuilt. 

We have said it and must emphasize 
it, there is no resemblance between the 
present and the former House of Lords. 
In demolishing the old palace, the old 
usages were somewhat demolished. 
Every stroke of the pickaxe in a monu- 
ment makes a corresponding stroke 
in customs and charters. An old stone 
cannot fall, without bringing down an 
old law with it. Place a square-haUed 
senate in a round haU, it will be some- 
thing different. Changing the shell 
changes the shape of the sheU-fish. 

If you want to preserve any thing 
old, profane or sacred, code or dogma, 
patriciate or priesthood, don’t renew 
any thing, not even the outside. Patch 
it, at most. For instance, Jesuitism is 
a patch let into Catholicism. Treat 
buildings as you treat institutions. 

Shades must dwell in ruins. Decrep- 
it powers are uncomfortable in newly- 


THE OLD HALL. 


299 


decorated dwellings. Ragged institu- 
tions require dilapidated palaces. 

To show tlie interior of the House of 
Lords, of days gone by, is to show some- 
thing unknown. History is night. There 
is no background to it. Every thing is 
consigned to insignificance and dark- 
ness, so soon as it ceases to ho before 
the footlights. A scene, once shifted, is 
effaced and forgotten. The unknown 
is a synonyme of the past. 

The peers of England used to sit, as 
a court of justice, in the great hall of 
"Westminster, and, as the upper legisla- 
tive chamber, in a particular hall, called 
the House of the Lords. 

Besides the court of English peers 
which only assembles when summoned 
by the crown, the two great English 
tribunals, inferior to the court of peers, 
but superior to every other jurisdiction, 
sat in the great hall of Westminster. 
At the upper end of this hall, they oc- 
cupied two rooms which communicated. 
The first tribunal was the Court of 
King’s Bench, at which the king was 
supposed to preside ; the second was the 
Court of Chancery, over which the 
lord-chancellor presided. One was a 
court of justice, the other a^ court 
of mercy. It was the chancellor who 
advised the king to pardon — occasion- 
ally. These two courts, which still ex- 
ist, interpreted the laws, and slightly 
remodelled them ; the judge’s art con- 
sists in tinkering the code. Equity 
gets out of this business as it best can. 
The laws were made and applied in 
that grave place, the great hall of West- 
minster. This hall had a vaulted roof 
of chestnut, to which spiders could not 
attach their webs ; there were enough 
of them in the laws. 

To sit as a court, and to sit as a cham- 
ber of legislation, are two things. This 
duality constitutes supreme power. 
The Long Parliament, which began 
November 3, 1640, felt the radical ne- 
cessity of this double sword. Therefore 


it declared itself a judicial and a legis- 
lative power at the same time, like a 
House of Peers. 

This double power was immemorial 
in the House of Lords. We have just 
said that, as judges, the Lords occupied 
Westminster Hall; as legislators, they 
had another chamber. 

This other chamber, properly called 
the Lords’ Chamber, was oblong and 
narrow. In the day it was lighted only 
from above by four deep windows in the 
false roof, and a curtained and circular 
window with six panes over the royal 
dais; at night the only illumination 
consisted of two demi-candelabra, fast- 
ened to the wall. The hall of the 
V enetian senate was still worse lighted. 
A certain amount of shade is agreeable 
to these omnipotent owls. 

Over the hall in which the lords met 
rose a high, swelling, vaulted roof, with 
gilt arches, and with its surface in dif- 
ferent planes. The commons had only 
a fiat ceiling ; every thing has a mean- 
ing in monarchical erections. At one 
end of the long room was the door, at 
the other, opposite it, the throne. A 
few steps from the door, the bar estab- 
lished a sort of frontier, marking the 
spot where the people ended and the 
aristocracy began. On the right of the 
throne, a mantel-piece, with a coat-of- 
arms on the top, showed two marble 
bas-reliefs, one representing the victory 
of Cuthwolf over the Britons in 572, 
the other the geometric plan of the 
borough of Dunstable, which has only 
four streets corresponding to the four 
quarters of the world. The throne was 
raised on three steps. It was called 
“the royal seat.” On the two oppo- 
site walls was displayed, in successive 
scenes, a huge tapestry which Elizabeth 
had given to the Lords, and which rep- 
resented the whole story of the Ar- 
mada, from its departure out of the 
Spanish waters to its shipwreck in the 
English. The lofty upperworks of the 


300 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


ships were woven in gold and silver 
threads, blackened by time. "With their 
backs to this tapestry, which the can- 
delabrum-fastenings divided at equal 
distances, were three rows of benches, 
on the right of the throne for the 
bishops, three rows on the left of the 
throne for the dukes, earls, and mar- 
quises, all mounted on rows of steps, 
and separated by other steps. On the 
three benches of the first division sat 
the dukes', on the three of the second 
the marquises, on the three of the third 
the earls. The viscounts’ bench was at 
right angles, opposite the throne ; and 
behind it, between the viscounts and 
the bar, were two benches for the 
barons. On the highest bench, at the 
right of the throne, were the two Arch- 
bishops of Canterbury and of York ; on 
the middle bench three bishops, Lon- 
don, Durham, and Winchester ; on the 
lowest bench, the other bishops. There 
was this important difference between 
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 
other bishops, that he, for his part, is 
bishop “by Divine Providence,” while 
the others are only so “by Divine per- 
mission.” On the right of the throne, 
was a chair for the Prince of Wales ; 
on the left, folding-stools for the royal 
dukes ; and behind these stools, a row 
of steps for the young peers who were 
minors, and had not yet seats in the 
house. Plenty of fleurs-de-lys every- 
where, and the great scutcheon of Eng- 
land on the four walls, over the peers as 
well as over the king. The sons of peers, 
and the heirs to peerages, were pres- 
ent at the sessions, standing behind the 
throne, between the dais and the wall. 
The throne at the end, and the three rows 
of benches for the peers on the three 
sides of the hall, left a large square 
space empty. In this square, which 
was covered with the state carpet bear- 
ing the arms of England, there were 
four woolsacks, one before the throne, 
on which sat the chancellor, between 


the mace and the seal one before the 
bishops, on which sat the judges, coun- 
cillors of state, who had the right to 
sit but not to vote; one before the 
dukes, marquises, and earls, on which 
sat the secretaries of state ; one before 
the viscounts and barons, on which the 
clerk of the crown and the clerk ot 
Parliament were seated, and the two 
under-clerks wrote, kneeling. In the 
middle of the square was a large cov- 
ered table, loaded with portfolios, regis- 
ters, and prison records; there were 
high candlesticks at its four corners, 
and massive gilt inkstands. The peers 
took their seats in chronological order, 
each according to the date of the crea- 
tion of his peerage. They took rank 
according to their title ; in the title ac- 
cording to their antiquity. At the bar 
stood the usher of the black rod, his 
wand in his hand. Within the door 
was the usher’s deputy, and without it 
the crier of the black rod, whose duty 
was to open the judicial sessions by the 
ciT) Oyez ! in French, uttered three 
times, with a solemn emphasis on the 
first syllable. Hear the crier stood the 
sergeant, who was the chancellor’s 
mace-bearer. 

In royal ceremonies, the peers tem- 
poral wore their coronets on their 
heads, and the peers spiritual their 
mitres. The archbishops wore a mitre 
with the ducal coronet; the bishops, 
who rank after the viscounts, a mitre 
with the barons’ circlet of pearls. 

It is singular and instructive to re- 
mark that this square formed by the 
throne, the bishops, and the barons, 
and in which magistrates are kneeling, 
was the ancient Parliament of France 
under the first two dynasties. Author- 
ity presented the same aspect in France 
and in England. Hincmar, in his De 
ordinatione sacri palatii, decribes, in 
853, the House of Lords in session at 
Westminster in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. 


THE OLD CHAMBEE. 


301 


A queer sort of deposition made nine 
Hundred years beforehand. 

What is history ? An echo of the 
past in the future. A reflection from 
the future on the past. 

The monarch was only obliged to 
summon a Parliament every seven 
years. 

The Lords deliberated in secret with 
closed doors. The sessions of the Com- 
mons were open to the public. Popular- 
ity seemed a diminution of dignity and 
power. 

The number of lords was unlimited. 
To make peers was a menace of 
the crown and a mode of govern- 
ing. 

At the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, the House of Lords already 
presented a very large figure. It has 
grown stiU larger, since. To dilute the 
aristocracy is good policy. Elizabeth 
perhaps made a mistake, when she 
condensed the peerage into sixty-five 
lords. When less numerous, it is more 
active. In assemblies, the more mem- 
bers, the fewer heads. James II. felt 
this, when he raised the number of the 
Upper House to a hundred and eighty- 
eight ; a hundred and eighty-six, if we 
strike olf from these peerages the two 
duchesses of the royal couch, Ports- 
mouth and Cleveland. Under Anne, 
the sum-total of the peers, including 
the bishops, was two hundred and 
seven ; without counting the Duke of 
Cumberland, who was the queen’s hus- 
band, there were twenty-five dukes, 
the first of whom, Horfolk, being a 
Catholic, did not sit; while the last, 
Cambridge, electoral prince of Han- 
over, sat, though a foreigner. ' Win- 
chester, styled first and sole Harquis of 
England, as Astorga was styled sole 
Marquis of Spain, being absent by rea- 
son of his Jacobitism, there were five 
marquises, the first of whom was Lind- 
say, and the last Lothian ; seventy-nine 
earls, the first of whom was Derby and 


the last Islay ; nine viscounts, the first 
of whom was Hereford and the last 
Lonsdale; and sixty-two barons, the 
first of whom was Abergaveny and the 
last Hervey. Lord Hervey, being the 
last baron, was called “ le pum6 ” of the 
House. Derby, who, being preceded 
by Oxford, Shrewsbury, and Kent, was 
only the third earl under James II., 
had become the first under Anne. Two 
names of chancellors had disappeared 
from the list of barons, Yerulam, un- 
der whom history discovers Bacon, 
and Wem, under whom history discov- 
ers Jeffreys. Bacon, Jefireys, names 
mournful in difierent ways. In 1705, 
the twenty-six bishops were but twen- 
ty-five, the See of Chester being vacant. 
Some of the bishops were very great 
lords, for instance, WiUiam Talbot, 
Bishop of Oxford, chief of the Protes- 
tant branch of his house. Others were 
distinguished scholars, such as John 
Sharp, Archbishop of York, former 
Dean of Norwich; the poet, Thomas 
Spratt, Bishop of Kochester, a good old 
apoplectic soul ; and that Bishop of Lin- 
coln destined to die Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, Wake, the adversary of Bos- 
suet. On important occasions, and 
when a communication from the crown 
to the Upper House was to be received, 
all this august multitude, in wigs and 
robes, with prelatic coifs or plumed 
bonnets, showed its rows of heads in 
lines and tiers around the hall of the 
peerage, along those walls on which 
might be dimly seen the Armada anni- 
hilated by a storm. A storm at the 
orders of England — such was the im- 
plied meaning of the tapestry. 

IV. 

THE OLD CHAMBEE. 

The whole ceremony of Cwynplaine’s 
investiture, from the entry under the 
king’s gate to taking the test-oath in 


302 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


the glazed circular recess, had taken 
place in a sort of dimmed light. 

Lord William Oowper had not al- 
lowed himself, Chancellor of England 
as he was, to receive too precise an 
account of the disfiguration of the 
young Lord Fermain Clancharlie in all 
its details; he thought it beneath his 
dignity to know that a peer was not 
handsome, and felt that he would be 
lowered by the boldness of an inferior 
giving him such information. Doubt- 
less, a man of the people takes pleas- 
ure in saying, “ This prince is a hunch- 
back.” Therefore, to be deformed is 
an offence to the dignity of a lord. To 
the few words which the queen had 
addressed to him on this subject, the 
lord-chancellor had contented himself 
with replying: “A lord has his lord- 
ship for face.” He had understood 
the thing in a general way, through 
the depositions which it had been his 
duty to verify and certify. Hence 
some precautions. 

The face of the new peer might, on 
his entrance into the chamber, cause 
a certain sensation. This possibility it 
was important to obviate. The lord- 
chancellor had taken his measures. The 
fixed idea and rule of conduct for serious 
personages is to avoid any thing like 
a scene. Dislike of incidents is an 
element of gravity. It was necessary 
to contrive that the admission of 
Gwynplaine should pass off quietly, 
like that of any other heir to a peer- 
age. 

For this reason, the lord-chancellor 
had appointed the reception of Lord 
Fermain Clancharlie to take' place at an 
evening session. The chancellor being 
porter, quodammodo ostiarim^ say the 
Herman charters, januarum cancello- 
rumque potestas^ says Tertullian, he can 
officiate outside the chamber on the 
threshold, and Lord William Cowper 
had used his right, by going through 
the formalities of Lord Fermain Clan- 


charlie’s investiture in the glazed circu- 
lar recess. Moreover, he had arranged 
that the new peer should make his 
entry into the chamber before the 
session had commenced. 

As to the investiture of a peer on 
the threshold and outside the chamber, 
there were precedents for this. The 
first hereditary baron created by pat- 
ent, John de Beauchamps of Holdcas- 
tle, made Baron of Kidderminster, in 
1387, by Kichard II., was received in 
this manner. 

In renewing this precedent, how- 
ever, the lord-chancellor was creating 
for himself a difficulty, the inconven- 
ience of which he perceived less than 
two years after, on the occasion of Vis- 
count Hewhaven’s entry into the House 
of Lords. 

Being, as we have said, short- 
sighted, Lord William Cowper scarce- 
ly noticed Gwynplaine’s deformity; 
the two lords, his sponsors, did not 
notice it at all. They were two old 
men, nearly blind. 

Better still, the lord-chancellor, hav- 
ing only seen Gwynplaine’s height and 
figure, found him “ very good-looking.” 

At the moment when the door- 
keepers opened before Gwynplaine the 
great folding-door, there were only a 
few lords in the chamber. These were 
almost all old men. Old men are the 
punctual ones in meetings, just as they 
are the attentive ones in ladies’ society. 
On the dukes’ bench there were but two 
dukes, one entirely white with age, the 
other gray-headed, Thomas Osborne, 
Duke of Leeds, and Schonberg, who, 
German by his birth, French by his 
marshalship, and English by his peer- 
age, expelled by the Edict of Hantes, 
after having made war on England as a 
Frenchman, made war on France as an 
Englishman. On the benches of the 
lords spiritual, there was only the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of 
England on the upper row, and on the 


THE OLD CHAMBER. 


303 


lower row Doctor Simon Patrick, 
Bishop of Ely ; the doctor was convers- 
ing with Evelyn Pier rep ont, Marquis 
of Dorchester, who explained to him 
the difference between a gabion and a 
courtine, and between palisades and 
“strawberries.” The palisades are a 
range of posts before the tents to pro- 
tect the encampment, and the “ straw- 
berries” a ring of sharpened stakes 
under the parapet of a fortress, to pre- 
vent the besiegers from scaling and the 
besieged from deserting ; and the mar- 
quis was showing the bishop how you 
“ strawberry ” a redoubt, putting half 
the stake into the ground and leaving 
half out. Thomas Thynne, Viscount 
Weymouth, was near a candelabrum, 
examining a plan of his architect’s for 
making in his garden at Long Leate in 
Wiltshire, a lawn called “ checkered 
sward,” with alternate diamonds of 
turf, yellow sand, red sand, sea-shells, 
and fine charcoal powder. On the 
viscounts’ bench was a crowd of old 
peers, Essex, Ossulstone, Peregrine, 
Osborne, William Zalestem, Earl of 
Rochford, and among them some young 
ones of the party which did not wear 
wigs, surrounding Price Devereux, 
Viscount Hereford, and discussing the 
question whether an infusion of Apa- 
lachian holly was tea. “ Almost,” 
said Osborne. “Quite,” said Essex. 
All which was attentively listened to 
by Pawlett Saint-John, cousin of the 
Bolingbroke who afterward was to 
some extent Voltaire’s teacher, for Fa- 
ther Por6e began Voltaire, and Boling- 
broke finished him. On the marquises’ 
bench, Thomas Grey, Marquis of Kent, 
lord-chamberlain of the queen, was 
telling Robert Bertie, Marquis of Lind- 
say and Lord-Chamberlain of England, 
that two French refugees. Monsieur 
Lecoq, ex-counsellor of the Parlia- 
ment of Paris, and Monsieur Rave- 
nel, a Breton nobleman, had won the 
great prize of the great English lottery 


in 1694. The Earl of Wymes was 
reading a book entitled “The curious 
Custom of the Sibylline Oracles.” John 
Campbell, Earl of Greenwich, famous 
for his long chin, his gayety, and his 
eighty-seven years, was writing to his 
mistress. Lord Chandos was paring 
his nails. 

As the session about to take place 
was a royal session, in which the crown 
would be represented by commission- 
ers, two assistant-doorkeepers placed 
before the throne a bench of flame- 
colored velvet. On the second wool- 
sack was seated the master of the rolls, 
sacTorum criniorum magister^ who was 
then lodged in the old house of the con- 
verted Jews. On the fourth woolsack, 
the two under-clerks, on their knees, 
were turning over the leaves of regis- 
ters. 

But now the lord-chancellor took his 
place on the first wool-sack ; the ofiicers 
of the House took theirs, some sitting, 
some standing ; the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury rose and uttered a prayer ; and 
the session began. Gwynplaine had 
already entered, some time before, 
without any one noticing him; the 
second bench of the barons, where his 
place was, being near the bar, he had 
but a few steps to take. The two 
sponsor lords had seated themselves 
on his right and left, which fact near- 
ly concealed the presence of the new- 
comer. TVithout any warning, the 
Parliament clerk had read in a low 
voice — whispered, so to say — the vari- 
ous documents concerning the new 
peer, and the lord-chancellor had pro- 
claimed his admission in the midst of 
what the reports call “ general inatten- 
tion.” Every one was talking. There 
was in the House that hubbub during 
which assemblies do all sorts of dark 
things, which sometimes astonish them 
afterward. 

Gwynplaine had seated himself in 
silence, bareheaded, between the two 


304 


BY THE KING’S, COMMAND. 


old peers, Lord Fitzwalter and Lord 
Arundel. 

On entering, according to the in- 
structions which king-at-arms had 
given him, and the sponsor lords had 
renewed, he had saluted the royal seat. 

So it was all over. He was a lord. 

This height, under the splendor of 
which he had, all his life, seen his mas- 
ter TJrsus bend in terror, this prodi- 
gious elevation, he had under his feet. 
He was in the place, at once the most 
brilliant and the darkest of England. 

Ancient summit of the feudal moun- 
tain regarded by Europe and histories 
for six centuries. Terrible aureole of a 
world of shades. 

His entry into this crown of light 
had taken place. It was irrevocable. 

He was there at home. 

In his own house, on his own seat, 
and like the king on his throne. 

He was there, and henceforth nothing 
could prevent his being there. 

That royal crown, which he saw un- 
der the dais, was the sister of his crown. 
He was the peer of that throne. 

In the presence of majesty he was 
lordship. Less, but like. 

Yesterday, what was he ? An actor. 
To-day, what is he ? A prince. 

I'esterday, nothing!' To-day, every 
thing. 

Sudden confrontation of wretched- 
ness and power, meeting face to face in 
one destiny, and forming all at once the 
two halves of one consciousness. 

Two phantoms, adversity and pros- 
perity, taking possession of the same 
soul and pulling it each a different way. 
Sad partition of an intelligence, a will, 
a brain, between these two hostile 
brothers, the poor spectre and the 
rich spectre. Abel and Cain in the 
same man. 


V. 

LOFTY PEATTLE. 

By slow degrees, the benches of the 
Chamber were filled. The lords began 
to arrive. The order of the day was a 
vote on the bill augmenting, by a 
hundred thousand pounds sterling, the 
annual dotation of George of Denmark, 
Duke of Cumberland, the queen’s hus- 
band. Beyond this, it was announced 
that divers bills, assented to by her 
Majesty, were to be brought into the 
Chamber by the crown commissioners 
charged and empowered to sanction 
them, which elevated the sitting into a 
royal one. All the peers wore their 
parliamentary robes, over their court or 
ordinary dress. This robe, similar to 
the one in which Gwynplaine was 
clothed, was alike for all, save that the 
dukes had five bands of ermine with a 
gold border, the marquises four, the 
earls and the viscounts three, and the 
barons two. The lords entered in 
groups. They had met together in the 
lobbies, and continued the conversa- 
tions begun there. Some came singly. 
The costumes were solemn ; the atti- 
tudes were not ; nor the words. Ah, 
on coming in, bowed to the throne. 

The peers were in crowds. This fil- 
ing-in of majestic names took place, al- 
most without ceremonial, the public 
being absent. Leicester entered and 
shook Lichfield’s hand; then Charles 
Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough and 
of Monmouth, the friend of Locke, up- 
on whose initiative he had proposed a 
general recoinage ; then Charles Camp- 
bell, Earl of Loudoun, listening to Eulke 
Greville, Lord Brooke; then Donne, 
Earl of Carnarvon; then Eobert Sutton, 
Baron Lexington, son of the Lexington 
who had counselled Charles II. to drive 
away Gregorio Leti, a historiographer 
so ill-advised as to desire to be an his- 
torian; then Thomas Bellsey, Vis- 


LOFTY PRATTLE. 


305 


count Falconberg, that handsome old 
man ; and, together, the three cousins 
Howard — Howard, Earl of Bindon; 
Bower-Howard, Earl of Berkshire; 
and Stafford-Howard, Earl of Stafford ; 
then John Lovelace, Baron Lovelace, 
which' peerage being extinct in 1736 
permitted Eichardson to introduce 
Lovelace into his hook, and under this 
name to create a type. All these per- 
sonages, variously celebrated in politics 
or in arms, and several of whom do 
honor to England, were laughing and 
chatting. It was like seeing history in 
undress. 

In less than half an hour the cham- 
ber was almost entirely full. This was 
quite natural, the sitting being a royal 
one. What was less natural, was the 
vivacity of conversation. The Cham- 
ber, so drowsy a little whUe previously, 
was now in a hubbub like a hive dis- 
turbed. It was the arrival of cer- 
tain belated lords, that had aroused it. 
They brought the news. Strange fact 
— the peers who were in the Chamber 
at the opening of the sitting did not 
know what had occurred there, while 
those who were not there knew it. 

Several lords arrived from Windsor. 

For some hours past, Gwynplaine’s 
adventure had been noised about. Se- 
crecy is a net ; if one mesh is broken, 
all is torn. Since the morning, as the 
result of incidents mentioned above, all 
this story of a peerage found upon 
trestles, and of a mountebank identi- 
fied as a lord, had made a stir at Wind- 
sor in the royal purlieus. Princes had 
talked of it ; then the lackeys. From 
the court, the event had gained the 
town. Events have their weight, and 
the law of momentum is applicable to 
them. They fall upon the public and 
bury themselves therein with wonderful 
rapidity. At seven o’clock, this story 
had not got wind in London. At eight 
o’clock, Gwynplaine was the talk of 
the town. Only the few lords, who had 


ccnne before the opening of the sitting, 
were uninformed about it, not being in 
the town where everything is told, and 
being in the Chamber where they were 
aware of nothing. Whereupon, tranquil 
on their benches, they were apostro- 
phized by the new-comers, all in excite- 
ment. 

— Well? said Francis Brown, Vis- 
count Mountacute, to the Marquis of 
Dorchester. 

— What? 

— Is it possible ? 

— What ? 

— The Man Who Laughs ! 

— What is the Man Who Laughs? 

— You don’t know the Man Who 
Laughs ? 

— Mo. 

— It is a clown. A youngster of the 
fair. An impossible face, that you go 
to see for a penny. A mountebank. 

— What then ? 

— You have just received him as peer 
of England. 

— The man who laughs is yourself, 
my Lord Mountacute. 

— I am not laughing, my Lord Dor- 
chester. 

And Viscount Mountacute made a sign 
to the clerk of Parliament, who rose up 
from his wool-sack, and confirmed to 
their lordships the fact of the new peer’s 
admission. Details were added. 

— Stay, stay, stay! said Lord Dor- 
chester. I was talking with the Bishop 
of Ely I 

The young Earl of Annesley came up 
to the old Lord Eure, who had not more 
than two years to live, for he was to 
to die in 1707. 

— My Lord Eure ! - 

— My Lord Annesley ? 

— Were you acquainted with Lord 
Linnasus Clancharlie ? 

— A man of the olden days ? Yes. 

— Who died in Switzerland ? 

— Yes. We were related. 

— Who had been republican under 


306 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Cromwell, and who remained republi- 
can under Charles II. ? 

— Eepublican? INotatall. He was 
sulky. It was a personal quarrel be- 
tween the king and him. I hold from 
certain authority, that Lord Clancharlie 
would have come over, if the place of 
chancellor, that Lord Hyde had, had 
been given to him. 

— You surprise me, my Lord Eure. 
I had been told that this Lord Clan- 
charlie was an honest man. 

— An honest man ! Is there such a 
thing in existence? Young man, there 
is no honest man. 

— But Cato ? 

— You believe in Cato, you? 

— But Aristides ? 

— They did well in banishing him. 

— But Thomas More ? 

— They did well in cutting off his 
head. 

— And, according to your informa- 
tion, Lord Clancharlie . . . 

— Was of the same sort. Besides, 
for a man to remain in exile is absurd. 

— He died in exile. 

— An ambitious man, tumbled down. 
Oh } If I knew him ? I think I did. 
I was his best friend. 

— Do you know, my Lord Eure, that 
he was married in Switzerland ? 

— I can almost answer for it. 

— And that he had a legitimate son 
by this marriage ? 

— Yes; who is dead. 

— Who is living. 

— Living ! 

— Living. 

— Impossible. 

— Fact. Proved. Declared. Con- 
firmed officially. Eegistered. 

— But then this son will inherit the 
peerage of Clancharlie ? 

— He will not inherit it. 

— Why? 

— Because he has inherited it. It is 
done. 

— Done ? 


— Turn your head, my Lord Eure. 
He is seated behind you, on the barons’ 
bench. 

Lord Eure turned round ; but Gwyn- 
plaine’s face was hidden under his for- 
est of hair. 

— Ha !, said the old man, seeing only 
his hair, he has already adopted the 
new fashion. He does not wear a wig. 

Grantham accosted Colepepper. 

— There’s a fellow who is over- 
reached. 

— Who’s that ? 

— David Dirry-Moir. 

— Why so ? 

— He is no longer peer. 

— How’s that ? 

And Henry Auverquerque, Earl of 
Grantham, related to J ohn, Baron Cole- 
pepper, the whole story — ^the stray bot- 
tle brought to the Admiralty, the Com- 
prachicos’ parchment, the jmsu regis, 
countersigned Jeffreys, the confronta- 
tion in the penal vault of Southwark, 
the acceptance of all these facts by the 
lord-chancellor and by the queen, the 
taking the test-oath in the circular 
glazed recess, and, lastly, the admis- 
sion of Lord Fermain Clancharlie at the 
beginning of the sitting. Then, both 
of them made an effort to distinguish, 
between Lord Fitzwalter and Lord 
Arundel, the face of the new lord so 
much talked about ; but without better 
success than Lord Eure or Lord An- 
nesley had had. 

Gwynplaine, for the rest, whether 
by chance, or by arrangement of his 
sponsors under advice of the lord-chan- 
cellor, was placed so mucli in shadow 
as to escape curiosity. 

— Well, but where is he ? 

This was the cry of every one on ar- 
rival ; but no one obtained a good sight 
of him. Some few, who had seen 
Gwynplaine at the Green-Box were in 
a fever of curiosity ; but they lost their 
pains. As it happens sometimes that 
a young girl is prudently closed in by a 


LOFTY PRATTLE. 


307 


circle of dowagers, so Gwynplaine was 
as it were enveloped by several tbick- 
nesses of old lords, infirm and indiffer- 
ent. Worthy folks, who have the gout, 
have not much sympathy as to stories 
told of others. 

Hugh Cholmley, Earl of Cholmley, 
well versed in law, was interrogated 
from the bench of bishops by ISTathanael 
•Crew, who was doubly a peer — tem- 
poral peer, being Baron Crew, spirit- 
ual peer, being Bishop of Durham. 

— Is it possible ? said Crew. 

— Is it in due form ? said Cholmley. 

— The investiture of the new-comer 
was made outside of the Chamber, pur- 
sued the bishop ; but it is stated that 
there are precedents. 

— Yes. Lord Beauchamp, under 
Richard II. ; Lord Chenay, under Eliz- 
abeth. 

— And Lord Broghill, under Crom- 
well. 

— Cromwell doesn’t count. 

— How do you regard it all ? 

— In various ways. 

— Hy Lord Earl of, Cholmley, what 
will be the rank of the young Eermain 
Clancharlie in the Chamber ? 

— Hy lord bishop, the republican in- 
terruption having disturbed the old or- 
der of precedence, Clancharlie to-day 
is placed in the peerage between Bar- 
nard and Somers, so that, in case of a 
call for votes, Clancharlie would be the 
eighth to speak. 

— Truly ! A mountebank from the 
public haunts ! 

— The incident in itself does not as- 
tonish me, my lord bishop. Such things 
do occur. Others happen, still more 
surprising. Was not the War of the 
Roses announced by the sudden drying- 
up of the river Ouse in Bedfordshire, 
on the 1st of January, 1399. How, if 
a river can fall dry, a lord may fall into 
a servile condition. Ulysses, King of 
Ithaca, followed all sorts of trades. 
Eermain Clancharlie has remained lord. 


under his wrapper of stage-player. The 
lowliness of dress doesn’t touch the 
nobility of blood. But the taking the 
test-oath, the investiture otherwise than 
in session, although legal in a strict 
point of view, may give rise to objec- 
tions. I am of opinion that we ought 
to have an understanding, so as to know 
whether there will be occasion hereaf- 
ter to question the lord-chancellor for- 
mally. W e shall see, in a few weeks, 
what there is to be done. 

' And the bishop added : 

— It’s all the same. It is such an ad- 
venture as has not been seen, since that 
of the Count Gesbodus. 

Gwynplaine, the Man Who Laughs, 
the Tadcaster Inn, the Green-Box, 
Chaos Conquered^ Switzerland, ChiUon, 
the comprachicos, the exile, the mutila- 
tion, the republic, Jeffreys, James II., 
the jussu regis^ the bottle opened at the 
Admiralty, the father — Lord Linnaeus, 
the legitimate son — Lord Eermain, the 
bastard son — Lord David, the probable 
confiicts, the Duchess Josiane, the lord- 
chancellor, the queen — all this flew 
from bench to bench. Whispering is 
a train of powder. The details were 
seized upon. The whole adventure 
caused an immense babble in the Cham- 
ber. Gwynplaine, in the very depths 
of revery where he was, heard vaguely 
all this buzzing noise around him, with- 
out knowing that it was on his own ac- 
count. 

'Nevertheless, he was strangely atten- 
tive, but attentive to what profoundly 
underlaid all this — not to what was on 
the surface. An excess of attention be- 
comes isolation. 

A noise in a Chamber does not hinder 
the sitting from pursuance of its course, 
any more than the dust raised by a 
troop hinders its march. The judges, 
who in the Upper Chamber are only 
simple assistants — unable to speak, un- 
less interrogated — had taken their places 
upon the second wool-sack, and the 


308 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


three secretaries of state upon the third. 
The eldest sons of peers crowded their 
compartment behind the throne, within 
and without. The peers, minors, were 
on their special bench. In 1705, these 
little lords were no fewer than a dozen : 
Huntingdon, Lincoln, Dorset, Warwick, 
Bath, Burlington, Derwentwater, des- 
tined to a tragical death, Longueville, 
Lonsdale, Dudley and Ward, and Car- 
teret, which made up a troop of little 
brats of eight earls, two viscounts, and 
two barons. 

Within the enclosed space, upon the 
three rows of benches, each lord had 
regained his seat. Hearly ail the bishops 
were there. The dukes were numer- 
ous, beginning with Charles Seymour, 
Duke of Somerset, and ending with 
George Augustus, prince electoral of 
Hanover, Duke of Cambridge, the 
latest in date, and consequently the 
last in rank. All were in order, ac- 
cording to precedence : Cavendish, 
Duke of Devonshire, whose grandfather 
had sheltered at Hardwick the ninety- 
two years of Hobbes ; Lennox, Duke 
of Eichmond ; the three Fitzroys, the 
Duke of Southampton, the Duke of 
Grafton, and the Duke of Northumber- 
land ; Butler, Duke of Ormond ; Som- 
erset, Duke of Beaufort; Beauclerc, 
Duke of Saint Albans ; Pawlett, Duke 
of Bolton; Osborne, Duke of Leeds; 
Writhiosley Eussell, Duke of Bedford, 
having for motto and device, Che sara 
sara^ that is to say, the taking things 
as they come ; Sheffield, Duke of Buck- 
ingham; Manners, Duke of Kutland; 
and others. Neither Howard, Duke 
of Norfolk, nor Talbot, Duke of Shrews- 
bury, were in session, being Catholics ; 
nor Churchill, Duke of Marlborough 
-—our Malbrouck— who was at the war, 
and was beating France at that mo- 
ment. There were no Scotch dukes 
then, Queensbury, Montrose, and Eox- 
burghe having only been admitted in 
1707. 


YI. 

UPPER AND LOWER. 

Suddenly, there was a vivid bril- 
liancy in the Chamber. Four door- 
keepers brought in, and placed on the 
two sides of the throne, four lofty can- 
delabra, garnished with wax-lights. 
The throne, thus lit up, appeared to be 
in a sort of luminous purple. Empty, 
but august. The queen thereupon 
would not have been much of an addi- 
tion. 

The usher of the black rod came in, 
with his wand raised, and said : 

— Their lordships, her majesty’s com- 
missioners. 

All the hubbub was hushed. 

A clerk, in wig and gown, appeared 
at the great door, holding a fleur-de- 
lysed cushion, on which sundry parch- 
ments were visible. These parchments 
were biUs. To each was hanging, by 
a silken tress, the bill or ball — some- 
times of gold — which gave rise to the 
appellation for the laws, of lilU in 
England, and of lulls at Kome. 

Behind the clerk came three men in 
peers’ robes, and with plumed hats on 
their heads. 

These men were the royal commis- 
sioners. The first was Godolphin, 
lord high-treasurer of England; the 
second was Pembroke, lord-president 
of the council; the third was New- 
castle, keeper of the privy seal. 

They walked one behind the other, 
according to precedence, not of their 
title, but of their office. Godolphin at 
the head, Newcastle last, though duke. 

They advanced to the bench before 
the throne, made an obeisance to the 
royal chair, took off and put on again 
their hats, and seated themselves upon 
the bench. 

The lord-chancellor looked at the 
usher of the black rod, and said : 

— Summon the Commons to the bar. 


UPPER AND LOWER. 


309 


The usher of) the black rod went out. 

The clerk, who was a clerk of the 
House of Lords, placed upon the table, 
within the enclosure made by the wool- 
sack, the cushion whereon were the 
bills. 

There was an interruption, that lasted 
several minutes. Two door-keepers 
placed in front of the bar a stepping- 
stool with three steps. This stool was 
in carnation-colored velvet, whereon 
fleurs-de-lys were designed in gilded 
nails. 

The great door, which had been re- 
closed, was opened again, and a voice 
cried out : 

— The faithful Commons of Eng- 
land ! 

It was the usher of the black rod, 
who announced the other half of Par- 
liament. 

The lords put on their hats. 

The members of the Commons’ House 
entered, preceded by the Speaker, all 
bai’e-headed. 

They stopped at the bar. They were 
in ordinary dress, for the most part in 
black, and wearing swords. 

The Speaker, the Right Honorable 
John Smythe, Esquire, member for the 
borough of Andover, mounted the stool 
that was against the central part of the 
barrier. The mouth-piece of the Com- 
mons wore a long black satin gown, 
with loose slashed sleeves, and trim- 
med with gold frogs in front and at the 
back. He was majestic, but infe- 
rior. 

All the Commons, Speaker and mem-, 
bers, remained in attendance standing 
up and bareheaded, before the peers, 
seated and with hats on. 

Among the Commoners might be re- 
marked, the Chief-Justice of Chester, 
Joseph JekyU, also three of her Majes- 
ty’s sergeants-at-law, Hooper, Powys, 
and Parker, James Montague, soli- 
citor-general, and the attorney-gen- 
eral, Simon Harcourt. With the ex- I 


ception of a few baronets and knights, 
and nine lords by courtesy, Hartington, 
Windsor, Woodstock, Mor'daunt, Gran- 
by, Scudamore, Eitzharding, Hyde, and 
Berkeley, sons of peers and heirs of 
peerages, all the rest were of the people. 
A sort of sombre and silent crowd. 

When the noise caused by the steps 
of all these in-comers had ceased, the 
crier of the black rod, at the door said : 

— Oyez ! 

The clerk of the crown stood up. He 
took, spread out, and read the first of 
the parchments laid upon the cushion. It 
was a message from the queen, naming, 
to represent her in Parliament, with 
power to assent to bills, three commis- 
sioners, to wit .... — Here the clerk 
raised his voice : 

— Sydney, Earl of Godolphin. 

The clerk bowed to Lord Godolphin. 
Lord Godolphin raised his hat. The 
clerk continued : 

— Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke • 
and of Montgomery. 

The clerk bowed to Lord Pembroke. 
Lord Pembroke touched his hat. 

— John Hollis, Duke'of Newcastle. 

The clerk bowed to Lord Newcastle. 
Lord Newcastle acknowledged it by a 
movement of his head. 

The clerk of the crown reseated him- 
self. The clerk of Parliament got up. 
His under-clerk, who had been on his 
knees, stood up behind him. Both were 
facing the throne, and turning their 
backs to the Commons. 

There were five bills upon the cush- 
ion. These five bills, voted by the 
Commons and approved by the Lords, 
were waiting the royal assent. 

The clerk of Parliament read the first 
biU. 

It was an act of the Commons, 
which charged upon the state the em- 
bellishments made by the queen at her 
palace of Hampton Court, amounting to 
a million sterling. 

The reading concluded, the clerk 


310 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


bowed low to tbe throne. The under- 
clerk repeated the salutation more pro- 
foundly still ; and then, half turning his 
head to the Commons, said : 

— The queen accepts your gifts, and 
wills it thus. 

The clerk read the second bill. 

It was a law condemning any one to 
prison and fine, who should evade service 
in the train- bands. The train-bands — 
troops that are trained, or drawn, 
wherever ordered — constitute that cit- 
izens’ militia which serves gratis, and 
which, under Elizabeth, at the approach 
of the Armada, had supplied a hundred 
and eighty-five thousand foot-soldiers 
and forty thousand horsemen. 

The two clerks made a new obeisance 
to the royal chair; after which, the 
sub-clerk, with his side-look, said to the 
House of Commons : 

— La reine le neut. (The queen wiUs 
it.) 

The third bill increased the tithes and 
prebendal emoluments of the bishopric 
of Lichfield and Coventry, which is 
one of the most richly endowed in Eng- 
land, granted an'allowance for the cathe- 
dral, augmented the number of canons, 
and enlarged the deanery and the liv- 
ings, “ so as to provide,” said the pream- 
ble, “ for the necessities of our holy re- 
ligion.” The fourth bill added new im- 
posts to the budget : one on marbled 
paper; one on hackney-coaches, fixed 
at the number of eight hundred in Lon- 
don, and taxed fifty-two pounds each 
per annum; one on advocates, attorneys, 
and solicitors, of forty-eight pounds, per 
head, per annum ; one on tanned hides, 
“notwithstanding,” said the preamble, 
“the complaints of the artisans in 
leather;” one on soap, “notwithstand- 
ing the protest of the city of Exeter and 
of Devonshire, where much serge and 
cloth is manufactured ; ” one on wine, 
of four shillings a cask ; one on flour ; 
one on barley and hops ; and renewed for 
four years — “inasmuch as state neces- 


sities,” said the preamble, “ ought to su- 
persede the remonstrances of com- 
merce ” — the duties on tonnage, vary- 
ing from six pounds. Tours currency, 
for vessels coming from the west, to 
eighteen pounds for those coming from 
the east. Finally, the bill declaring in- 
sufllcient the ordinary capitation tax, 
already levied for the current year, 
wound up with a general and addition- 
al tax of four shillings, or forty-eight 
pence, per head, with proviso that 
any persons, refusing to take the new- 
ly-ordered oaths in favor of the gov- 
ernment, should pay double the amount 
above named. The fifth bill forbade 
the admittance of any patient into the 
hospital, unless he deposited a pound 
sterling, on entrance, to pay for his bu- 
rial, in -case of death. The last three 
bills, like the first two, were, one after 
the other, assented to and made law by 
a salutation to the throne, and by the 
four words of the sub-clerk, la reine le 
veut^ addressed, over his shoulder, to 
the Commons. 

Then the sub-clerk went down again 
on his knees before the fourth wool- 
sack, and the lord-chancellor said : 

— Let it be done, as desired. 

This ended the royal sitting. 

The Speaker, bent in two before the 
chancellor, descended backward from 
the stool, arranging his robe behind 
him. The Commoners present bowed 
down to the ground ; and while the Up- 
per Chamber, without paying any at- 
tention to all these reverences, resumed 
its interrupted order of the day, the 
Lower Chamber went its way. 

VII. • 

HUMAN STORMS WORSE THAN OCEAN 
STORMS. 

The doors were shut again ; the 
usher of the black rod reentered ; the 
lords commissioners left the bench of 


HUMAN STOKMS WOESE THAN OCEAN STOEMS. 


811 


state, and took their seats at the head 
of the dukes’ bench, in their official 
places, and the lord-chancellor spoke 
thus: 

— My lords, the Chamber having de- 
liberated for several days upon the hill 
that proposes to augment by one hun- 
dred thousand pounds sterling the an- 
nual provision of his royal highness 
the prince, hushandof her Majesty, and 
the debate having been exhausted and 
closed, you will now proceed to vote. 
The vote will be taken, according to 
usage, beginning with the youngest of 
the bench of barons. Each lord, at the 
calling of his name, will stand up and 
reply content or not content, and will 
be at liberty to set forth the reasons 
of his vote, if he so thinks fit. Clerk, 
call the roll. 

The clerk of Parliament, on his feet, 
opened a large folio volume, set up on 
a gilded desk, which was the Book of 
the Peerage. 

The pidne of the Chamber at that 
period was Lord John Hervey, created 
baron and peer in 1703, from whom are 
descended the Marquises of Bristol. 

The clerk called : 

— My Lord John, Baron Hervey. 

An old man, in a blond wig, rose and 
said: 

— Content. 

Then he sat down. 

The sub-clerk registered the vote. 

The clerk went on : 

— My Lord Francis Seymour, Baron 
Conway of Killultagh. 

— Content, murmured, as he half 
rose from his seat, a graceful young 
man with a page’s figure, who had no 
suspicion that he was to be the grand- 
father of Marquises of Hertford. 

— My Lord John Leveson, Baron 
Gower, resumed the clerk. 

This baron, from whom were to 
spring the Dukes of Sutherland, rose 
up, and said, as he sat down again : 

— Content. 


The clerk continued : 

— My Lord Heveage Finch, Baron 
Guernesey. 

The ancestor of the Earls of Ayles- 
ford, no less young and elegant than 
the ancestor of the Marquises of Hert- 
ford, justified his device, Aperto mmve 
wto, by the haughtiness of his assent. 

— Content 1 he cried. 

While he was seating himself, the 
clerk called the fifth baron : 

— My Lord John, Baron Granville. 

— Content, replied, all at once up 
and down again. Lord Granville de 
Potheridge, whose futureless peerage 
was to be extinct in 1709. 

The clerk passed on to the sixth. 

— My Lord Charles Mountague, 
Baron Halifax. 

— Content, said Lord Halifax, bearer 
of a title beneath which the name of 
Saville had become, and the name of 
Mountague was to become, extinct. 
Mountague is distinct from Montagu 
and from Mountacute. 

And Lord Halifax added ; 

— The Prince George has a dotation 
as her Majesty’s husband; he has an- 
other as prince of Denmark ; another as 
Duke of Cumberland ; and another as 
lord high-admiral of England and Ire- 
land. But he has not one as generalis- 
simo. That is an injustice. This irreg- 
ularity must be brought to an end, in 
the interest of the English people. 

Then Lord Halifax gave vent to a 
eulogy on the Christian religion, cen- 
sured the papal, and voted the subsidy. 

Lord Halifax reseated, the clerk per- 
severed : 

— My Lord Christopher, Baron Bar- 
nard. 

Lord Barnard, from whom the Dukes 
of Cleveland were to descend, rose at 
the call of his name. 

— Content. 

And he was somewhat slow in taking 
his seat again, having on a lace cravat, 
which was worth the trouble of looking 


312 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


at. For the rest, a wortliy gentleman 
and a valiant officer was Lord Barnard. 

While Lord Barnard was settling 
himself, the clerk, who read by routine, 
hesitated a little. He adjusted his 
spectacles, and leaned over the register 
with redoubled attention ; then, lifting 
his head up, he called : 

— My Lord Fermain Olancharlie, 
Baron Olancharlie and Hunkerville. 

Gwynplaine rose. 

— Hot content, said he. 

All the heads were turned toward 
him. Gwynplaine was on his feet. 
The flicker of the candles placed on 
either side of the throne vividly lighted 
up his face, and made it stand out, in 
the vast dini hall, in such relief as a 
mask would have on a background of 
smoke. 

Gwynplaine had made that effort 
over himself, which, it may be remem- 
bered, was strictly within his power. 
By a concentration of will, equal to 
that which is requisite for taming a 
tiger, he had succeeded for a moment 
in bringing back to gravity the fatal 
grin upon his countenance. For the 
instant, he did not laugh. This could 
not last long; departures from that 
which is the law of our being, or our 
fatality, are brief. Sometimes the water 
of the sea resists the law of gravitation, 
puffs itself up into a water-spout, and 
becomes a mountain — but on condition 
of falling back again. Such was the 
struggle of Gwynplaine. For a minute, 
that he felt to be a solemn one, but for 
not much longer time than the light- 
ning-flash endures, he had cast over his 
brow, by a prodigious intensity of will, 
the sombre veil of his soul. He held 
his incurable laugh in suspense; he 
withdrew jocularity from the face that 
had been sculptured for him. He was 
but simply hideous. 

— What is that man ? was the general 
cry. 

An indescribable shudder ran along 


all the benches. That forest of hair, 
those cavernous sinkings under the eye- 
brows, that deep outlook from an eye 
that was not visible, the flerce model- 
ling of that head — horrible mingling 
of light and shadow — it was wondrous. 
It surpassed every thing. It was vain 
to have talked of Gwynplaine — the 
seeing him was awful. They even, who 
looked for it, could not have looked for 
it. Figure to yourself, upon a moun- 
tain reserved for the gods, and, during 
a festival on some serene evening, the 
whole assemblage of the omnipotent 
gathered together, and the face of 
Prometheus, torn by the peckings of 
the vulture’s beak, appearing all at once, 
like a bloody moon upon the horizon ! 
Olympus recognizing Caucasus — what 
a spectacle! Young and old stared at 
Gwynplaine, open-mouthed. 

An old man highly esteemed by all 
the Chamber — one who had seen many 
men and many things, and was marked 
out for a dukedom — Thomas, Earl of 
Wharton, rose in affright. 

— What’s the meaning of this? he 
exclaimed. Who has introduced this 
man into the House ? Let him be put 
out ! 

And addressing himself disdainfully 
to Gwynplaine : 

— Who are you? Whence do you 
come? 

Gwynplaine answered : 

— From the bottomless pit. 

And, crossing his arms, he eyed tho 
lords. 

— Who am I ? I am wretchedness. 
My lords, I have something to say to 
you. 

There was a shuddering, and silence. 
Gwynplaine continued : 

— My lords, you are placed high. It 
is well thus. It must be believed that 
God has His reasons for this. You 
have power, opulence, pleasure, the 
sun immovable at your zenith, unlimit- 
ed authority, enjoyment undivided, a 


HUilAN STORMS WORSE 

total forgetfulness of others. So be it. 
But there is something below you. 
Above yon, perhaps. My lords, I im- 
part to you a novelty. The human race 
exists. 

Assemblies resemble children; inci- 
dents are their surprise-boxes, of which 
they are afraid, while delighting in 
tliem. Sometimes it seems as though 
a spring were touched, and a devil is 
seen to jump out of his hole. Thus, 
Mirabeau in France, himself, too, de- 
formed. 

Gwynplaine, at this moment, felt with- 
in him a strange expansion. A group 
of men, whom you address, is a tripod. 
You are, so to say, standing upon .a 
pinnacle of souls. You have, beneath 
your heel, a tremor of human entrails. 
Gwynplaine was no longer the man 
who, the night previous, had been for 
an instant almost diminutive. The 
fumes of his sudden elevation, that had 
troubled him, were lightened and had 
become transparent ; and there, where 
Gwynplaine had been seduced by a 
feeling of vanity, he now perceived his 
function. That, which at first had 
lessened, now uplifted him. He was 
illumined by one of those grand light- 
ning-flashes that are evolved from duty. 

From all sides around Gwynplaine, 
there was a cry : 

— Hear ! hear ! 

He, meanwhile, gathered up within 
himself and superhuman, succeeded in 
maintaining on his countenance the 
severe and lugubrious contraction, un- 
der which the grin was prancing, like 
a wild horse ready to break away. He 
went on : 

— I am he who comes from the 
depths. My lords, you are the great 
and the rich. That is perilous. You 
take advantage of the night. But have 
a care; there is a great power, the 
morning. The dawn cannot be van- 
quished. It will come. It comes. It 
has within it the outbreak of irresistible 


THAN OCEAN STORMS. 313 

day. And who will hinder this sling 
from hurling the sun into the sky ? The 
sun — that is right. You — you are Priv- 
ilege. Be afraid. The true master 
of the house is about to knock at the 
door. "What is the father of Privilege ? 
Chance. And what is his son ? Abuse. 
Neither Chance nor Abuse is endur- 
ing. They have, both of them, an evil 
to-morrow. I come to warn you. I 
come to denounce to you your own 
bliss. It is made out of the ills of others. 
You have everything; and this every 
thing is composed from others’ nothing. 
My lords, I am a disheartened advocate, 
and I plead a cause that is lost. But that 
cause God will regain. For myself, I 
am nothing, save a voice. The human 
race is a mouth, and I am its cry. You 
shall hear me. I come to open before 
you, peers of England, the grand assizes 
of the people — that sovereign who is 
the patient one, that convict who is the 
judge. I am bowed down under what 
I have to say. Where to begin ? I know 
not. I have picked up, in the vast ex- 
perience of suflfering, my vast though 
straggling pleas. Now, what shall I 
do with them ? They overwhelm me, 
and I throw them forth, pell-mell be- 
fore me. Had I foreseen this? No. 
You are astonished. So am I. Yester- 
day, I was a mountebank; to-day, I 
am a lord. Deep-played game. Of 
whom ? Of the unknown. Let us trem- 
ble, aU. My lords, all the azure is on 
your side. You do but see the holiday 
side of this immense universe; learn 
that there is shadow to it. Among you, 
I am called Lord Fermain Olancharlie; 
but my true name is a poor man’s name, 
Gwynplaine. I am a wretch, cut out 
from the stufl^ whereof the great are 
made, by a king whose good pleasure 
it was. This is my story. Several 
among you have known my father. I 
never knew him. It is by his feudal 
side that he is akin to you ; while I 
cleave to him by his side of banishment. 


314 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


What God has done is well. I was 
thrown into the abyss. To what end ? 
That I might see its very depth. I am 
a diver, and I bring np thence the pearl, 
truth. I speak, because I know. You 
shall hear me, my lords. I have ex- 
perienced. I have seen. Suffering — no, 
it is not a word, 0 masters in bliss. Pov- 
erty — I have grown up in it ; winter — 
I have shivered in it ; famine — I have 
tasted it ; scorn — I have undergone it ; 
the plague — I have had it; shame — I 
have drunk of it ! And I will vomit it 
forth before you, and this vomit of all 
miseries will splash your feet, and will 
flame up. I hesitated, before permit- 
ting myself to be brought to this place 
where I am, for I have other duties else- 
where, and it is not here that my heart 
is. What has taken place in me is not 
your affair ; when the man, whom you 
call usher of the black rod, came to 
look for me on the part of the woman, 
whom you caU the queen, I thought, 
for a moment, of refusing. But it 
seemed to me that the mysterious hand 
of God urged me in this direction, and 
I obeyed. I felt it requisite that I 
should come among you. Why? Be- 
cause of my yesterday’s rags. It was 
in order that my voice might be raised 
among the satiated, that God commin- 
gled me with the hungered. Oh 1 have 
pity ! Oh ! you know nof this fatal 
world, whereto you believe that you 
belong. So high, you are outside of it. 
I will tell you what it is. I have had 
experience. I come up from beneath 
pressure. I can tell you how much you 
weigh. O ye, who are masters, know 
you what you are ? What you are do- 
ing — see you it? No. Ah I all is 
terrible. One night, a tempestuous 
night, very little, abandoned, an orphan, 
alone in boundless creation, I made my 
entry into this gloom that you call so- 
ciety. The flrst thing, that I saw, was 
law, under the form of a gibbet ; the 
second was wealth— it is your wealth 


— under the form of a woman dead of 
cold and hunger; the third was the 
future, under the form of a child in 
agony ; the fourth was the good, the 
true, the just, beneath the figure of a 
vagabond, whose only friend and com- 
panion was a wolf. 

At this moment, Gwynplaine, over- 
come by poignant emotion, felt the ris- 
ing of sobs in his throat ; and from this 
cause came the sinister fact, that he 
broke out into his laugh. 

The contagion was immediate. There 
had been a cloud over the assemblage ; 
it might have burst out into affright ; 
it burst out into hilarity. The laugh, 
that full-blown madness, seized the 
whole Chamber. The guest-chambers of 
sovereign men ask nothing better than 
to play the fool. It is thus that they 
avenge themselves for being serious. 

A laugh of kings is like a laugh of the 
gods ; it is never without its cruel point. 
The lords betook themselves to sport. 
Sneering made the laugh more pungent. 
They clapped their hands around him 
who had been speaking, and mocked 
him. A hurly-burly of jocose interjec- 
tions assailed him — a gay and murder- 
ous hail-storm. 

— Bravo, Gwynplaine ! — Bravo, Man 
Who Laughs! — Bravo, sport 'of the 
Green-Box! — Bravo, wild-boar’s head 
of the Tarrinzeau-Field ! — You’ve given 
us a performance ! Good, babbler ! — 
Here’s the chap to amuse me! — But 
doesn’t he laugh well, the animal! — 
Good-day, dancing-jack! — Hurrah for 
Lord Clown! — Speak away; go it! — 
He’s a peer of England ; bah ! — Go on ! 
— No! no! — ^Yes, yes! 

The lord-chancellor was iU at ease. 

A deaf lord, J ames Butler, Duke of 
Ormond, making with Lis hand an 
acoustic ear-trumpet, asked Charles 
Beauclerc, Duke of St. Albans : 

— How has he voted ? 

St. Albans answered : 

— Not content. 


HUMAN STOEMS WOESE THAN OCEAN STOEMS. 


315 


— Zounds, said Ormond, I can well 
believe it, with such a visage as that I 

A crowd broken up — and assem- 
blages are crowds— just get hold of it 
again! Eloquence is a bit; if the bit 
breaks, the audience runs awaj, and 
kicks up its heels until it has dismounted 
the orator. This is not sufficiently known. 
To tighten the bridle-rein seems to be a 
resource, and is not one. But every 
orator tries it. That is instinct. Gwyn- 
plaine tried it. 

He looked earnestly for a moment at 
these men who were laughing. 

— Then, cried he, you insult misery I 
SUence, peers of England! Judges, 
hear the pleadings! Oh! I conjure 
you, have pity ! Pity on whom ? Pity 
on yourselves. Who is in danger ? 
You are. Ho you not perceive that 
you are in scales, and that there is in 
one scale your power, and in the other 
your responsibility? God weighs you. 
Oh ! do not laugh ! Think of it. * This 
oscillation of God’s balance is the 
trembling of the conscience. You are 
not 'wicked. You are men, as others 
are, neither better nor worse. You 
believe yourselves gods ; be ill to-mor- 
row, and see your divinity shaking with 
fever! We are all of equal value. I 
address myself to honest minds : there 
are some here. I address myself to ex- 
alted intelligences : there are some 
here. I address myself to generous 
souls: there are some here. You are 
fathers, sons, and brothers; therefore, 
you are often moved. He among you, 
who looked this morning at his little 
child, is good. Hearts are the same. 
Humanity is nothing else than a heart. 
Between those who oppress, and 
those who are oppressed, the only dif- 
ference is in the place where they are 
situated. Your feet tread upon their 
heads; but it is not your fault. It is 
the fault of the social Babel. Faulty 
construction; every thing out of the 
perpendicular. One story overlaps an- | 


other. Listen to me, and I will explain 
it. Oh! since you are powerful, be 
fraternal ; since you are great, be gen- 
tle ! If you only knew what I have 
seen ! Alas ! in the lower grades, what 
torments ! The human race is in a 
dungeon! How many convicts, who 
are innocents ! Light is wanting, air is 
wanting, virtue is wanting; there is no 
hope; and, what is terrible, there is ex- 
pectation. Take note of these distresses. 
There are beings who live in death. 
There are little girls, who begin at eight 
by prostitution, and who end at twenty 
by old age. As for penal punishments, 
they are fearful. I speak somewhat at 
random, and I do not pick out. I say 
what comes into my mind. No later 
than yesterday, I, who am here, saw a 
man in chains and naked, with stones 
upon his behy, expire under torture. 
Ho you know that ? No, If you knew 
what is occurring, not one of you would 
dare to be happy. "Who among you has 
been to Newcastle-on-Tyne ? There are 
men in the mines, who chew coal, to 
fiU the stomach and cheat hunger. 
Look you, in Lancashire. Eibblechester 
has sunk from town to village, by force 
of indigence. I do not find that Prince 
George of Henmark stands in need of 
an additional hundred thousand of 
guineas. I should prefer receiving the 
poor sick man into the hospital, with- 
out making him pay his funeral charges 
in advance. In Caernarvon, at Traith- 
maur as at Traith-bichan, the exhaus- 
tion of the poor is terrible. At Straf- 
ford, the marshes cannot be drained, 
for want of money. The cloth-manu- 
factories are closed all through Lan- 
cashire. Want of work everywhere. 
Are you aware that the Harlech her- 
ring-fishermen eat grass, when the fish- 
ery fails ? Are you aware that at Bur- 
ton-Lazers there are still certain lepers 
driven into the woods, who are fired at 
if they come out of their dens? At 
Ailesbury, whereof one of you is lord. 


316 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


dearth is the permanent order of things. 
At Penckridge, in Coventry, whereof 
you have just endowed the cathedral 
and enriched the bishop, there are no 
beds in the hovels, and holes are dug 
in the ground for little children to sleep 
in, so that, in place of beginning with 
the cradle, they begin with the tomb. 
I have seen these things myself. My 
lords, do you know who pays the taxes 
that you vote ? Those who are dying. 
Alas I you deceive yourselves. You 
take a wrong road. You augment the 
poverty of the poor, to augment the 
riches of the rich. It is the reverse 
that must be done. "What, take from 
the laborer, to give to the idler I take 
from the ragged, to give to the over- 
fed ! take from the indigent to give to a 
prince! Oh! yes, I have old republi- 
can blood in my veins. I hold all this 
in horror. I execrate these kings. And 
how brazen-faced are the women ! I 
have been told a sorrowful story. Oh! 
how I hate Charles II.! A woman, 
whom my father had loved, gave her- 
self to that monarch while my fa- 
ther was dying in exile ; Charles IL, 
James II.; after a good-for-nothing 
fellow, a villain ! "What is there in a 
king ? — a man, a feeble and sorry sub- 
ject of wants and infirmities. Of 
what use is a king? You fill to over- 
flowing this parasite royalty. Of this 
earthworm, you make a boa. Of this 
tape-worm, you make a dragon. Mercy 
for the poor! You add weight to the 
impost, for the benefit of the throne. 
Beware of the laws that you decree! 
Beware of the painful sting of the ants 
whom you are crushing ! Lower your 
eyes ! Look at your feet ! O great 
ones, there are little ones! Have pity! 
Yes, pity on yourselves, for the multi- 
tudes are in agony, and that which is 
below — in dying — ^brings death upon 
that which is above. 'When night comes, 
none can keep his own corner of day- 
light. Are you egotists? Save the 


others. Tlie loss of the ship is not 
matter of indifference to any passenger. 
There is no shipwreck of these, without 
an engulfment of those. Oh ! be sure 
of it, the abyss is for all of us. 

The laugh was redoubled, irresistibly. 
Besides, for enlivening the assembly, 
what there was of extravagance in these 
words sufficed. 

There is no anguish more humiliating, 
no anger more deeply stirred, than in 
being comic externally, and internally 
tragic. This was the case with Gwyn- 
plaine. His words desired to produce 
one effect ; his face produced a different 
effect. Terrible position! Suddenly 
his voice rang out in shrill tones : 

' — They are merry, these men ! It is 
well. Irony sets itself face to face with 
agony. The sneer does outrage on the 
death-rattle. They are all powerful. It 
is possible. Be it so. It will be seen. 
Ah ! I am one of theirs. I am also 
one of yours, O you, the poor ! A king 
sold mo; a poor man picked me up. 
Who mutilated me? a prince. Who 
cured me and nourished me? a man dy- 
ing of hunger. I am Lord Clancharlie, 
but I remain Gwynplaine. I am con- 
nected with the great, and I belong to 
the small. I am among those who en- 
joy, and of those who suffer. Ah! 
this society is false. One day, the true 
society will come. Then there wiU be 
no more lords ; , there will be free liv- 
ing men. There will be no more mas- 
ters; there will be fathers. This is 
the future. Ho more prostration, no 
more abasement, no more ignorance, 
no more men beasts of burden, no more 
courtiers, no more valets, no more kings 
— light ! In the mean while, here am I. 
I have a right, and I make use of it. Is 
it a right? Ho, if I use it for my own 
ends. Yes, if I use it for the benefit 
of all. I will speak to the lords, being 
one of them. 0 my grovelling brethren, 
I will tell them of your destitution. 
I will stand up, with a handful of the 


HUMAN STOEMS WOESE THAN OCEAN STOEMS. 


people’s rags in my hand, and I will 
shake over the masters the misery of 
the slaves; and they will be able no 
longer — they the favored ones and the 
haughty ones — to hold themselves aloof 
from remembrance of the unfortunate, 
and to deliver themselves — they the 
princes — from the smart of the poor ; 
and, if the poor be vermin, so much 
the worse, and so much the better, if 
it fall upon lions ! 

Here Gwynplaine turned toward the 
under-clerks on the fourth wool-sack, 
who were writing as they knelt. 

— "What are these persons who are 
on their knees ? "What are you doing 
there ? Rise up ; you are men. 

This abrupt appeal to subalterns, 
whom it is not becoming for a lord even 
to perceive, brought the general hilarity 
to a climax. “ Bravo ! ” had been the 
cry ; now it was “ Hurrah ! ” From 
clapping hands, they passed on to stamp- 
ing feet. It might have been thought 
that they were at the Green-Box. 
Only at the Green-Box, the laugh greet- 
ed Gwynplaine ; here it overwhelmed 
him. The effort of ridicule is to kill. 
Sometimes, man’s laughter does all in 
its power to assassinate. 

The laugh had become violence. It 
rained jeering puns. 

To be witty is the stupid aim of 
assemblages. Their far-fetched and 
foolish giggling puts aside facts, in place 
of studying them ; and proscribes ques- 
tions at issue, in place of solving them. 
An incident is a point of interrogation. 
In laughing, it is a laugh at the puzzle. 
The sphinx, who does not laugh, lies 
in wait. 

Contradictory shouts were heard. 

— Enough! Enough! — ^Encore! En- 
core! 

William Farmer, Baron Leimpster, 
threw at Gwynplaine the insult of Eyc- 
Quincy to Shakespeare : 

— Histrio ! mima! 

Lord Vaughan, a sententious individ- 


317 

ual, the twenty-ninth on the baron’s 
bench, exclaimed: 

— Here we are again at the period 
when the animals harangued. In the 
midst of human mouths, the jaw of a 
beast has the word. 

— Let’s hearken to Balaam’s ass! 
added Lord Yarmouth. Lord Yar- 
mouth had the sagacious air conferred 
by a bottle nose and a wry mouth. 

— The rebel Linumus is chastised in 
his tomb. The son is the father’s pun- 
ishment ! said John Hough, Bishop of 
Lichfield and Coventry,’ whose pre- 
bend Gwynplaine had grazed. 

— He lies, afiirmed Lord Cholmley, 
the legislator. "What he calls tor- 
ture is la peine forte et dure, and a very 
good pain, too. Torture does not exist 
in England. 

Thomas Wentworth, Baron Eaby, ap- 
pealed to the lord-chancellor : 

— My lord chancellor, adjourn the 
sitting ! 

— No ! no ! no ! Let it go on ! He 
amuses us ! Hip ! hip ! hip ! 

Thus shouted the young lords ; their 
gayety came near to madness. Four 
especially were in the full blast of mer- 
riment and of hate. These were : 
Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester; 
Thomas Tufton, Earl of Thanet; Vis- 
count Hatton, and the Duke of Montague. 

— To your kennel, Gwynplaine ! said 
Rochester. 

— Down with him! Down with him! 
cried Thanet. 

Viscount Hatton drew a penny from 
his pocket, and threw it to Gwynplaine. 

And John Campbell, Earl of Green- 
wich, Savage, Earl Rivers, Thompson, 
Baron Haversham, Wallington, Escrik, 
RoUiston, Rockingham, Carteret, Lang- 
dale, Banester Maynard, Hunsdon, 
Caernarvon, Cavendish, Burlington, 
Robert Darcy, Earl of Holderness, and 
Other Windsor, Earl of Plymouth, ap- 
plauded. 

Tumult of pandemonium or of the 


318 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Pantheon, wherein Gwynplaine’s words 
were swallowed np. Only the phrase 
could he distinguished : Take care ! 

Ealph, Duke of Montagu, recently 
from Oxford University, and still wear- 
ing his earliest mustache, came down 
from the ducal bench whereon he was 
the nineteenth sitter, and posed him- 
self with crossed arms in front of 
Gwynplaine. There is in the sword- 
blade a spot which cuts the sharpest, 
and in the voice an accent which in- 
sults the most grossly. Montagu adopted 
that accent, and, grinning in Gwyn- 
plaine’s face, cried out to him : 

— "What’s that, that you say ? 

— I predict, replied Gwynplaine. 

There was a fresh explosion of laugh- 
ter. And, underneath this laughter, 
anger was muttering in sustained bass. 
One of the minor peers, Lionel Cran- 
sield Sackville, Earl of Dorset and Mid- 
dlesex, got up standing on his bench, 
not laughing, but grave as becomes a 
future legislator, and not saying a word, 
looked at Gwynplaine with his own 
fresh countenance of twelve years, and 
shrugged his shoulders. This caused 
the Bishop of St. Asaph to lean toward 
the ear of the Bishop of St. David, 
seated beside him, and to say to him, 
pointing at Gwynplaine: There’s the 
madman ! — And pointing to the child : 
There’s the sage ! 

A chaos of sneering laughs broke 
through confused exclamations : — Gor- 
gon’s face! — What’s the meaning of 
this adventure ? — Affront to the House ! 
— "What an exception is such a fellow ! 
— Shame! shame! — Let the sitting be 
adjourned ! — No ! let it be finished ! — 
Speak out, buffoon ! 

Lord Lewis de Duras, his hands on 
his hips, cried out : 

— Ah ! how good laughing is ! My 
spleen is charmed away. I propose a 
vote of thanks, conceived thus : The 
House of Lords thanks the Green-Box. 

Gwynplaine, it will be remembered. 


had dreamed of a different recep- 
tion. 

Any one who, above a dizzy depth, 
has clambered up a steep slope of sand 
entirely friable — who has felt his hold 
loosen and escape from under his hands, 
from under his nails, from under his 
elbows, from under his knees, from un- 
der his feet — who, sliding back in place 
of advancing up this refractory escarp- 
ment — a prey to the anguish of slipping 
— sinking-in, instead of climbing — de- 
scending instead of mounting up — in- 
creasing the certainty of being lost 
by efforts made in direction of the 
summit — and losing himself a little 
more surely at each movement to with- 
draw himself from danger — ^has felt the 
formidable approach of the abyss, and 
has had in his bones the chilling sensa- 
tion of a fall into the gaping jaws be- 
neath him. Such a one has experienced 
what Gwynplaine experienced. 

He felt what he was ascending crum- 
ble away beneath him ; and his audience 
was a precipice. 

There is always some one who sums 
up every thing in a word. 

Lord Scarsdale translated the feeling 
of the assemblage into an exclama- 
tion: 

— What has this monster come to do 
here ? 

Gwynplaine stood up, desperate, in- 
dignant, as it were in a supreme con- 
vulsion. He eyed them all with fixed 
look. 

— What do I come to do here ? I 
come to be terrific. I am a monster, 
say you? No; I am the people. lam 
an exception ? No ; I am all the world. 
It is you who are the exception. You 
are the chimera, and I am the reality. 
I am man. I am the fearful Man Who 
Laughs. Who laughs at what? At 
you. At himself. At every thing. 
And what is his laugh? Y'our crime 
and his torment. This crime, he throws 
it in your face ; this torment, he spits 


HUMAN STOEMS WOESE THAN OCEAN STOEMS. 


319 


it in your face 1 I laugh, that is to say, j 
I weep. 

lie stopped. They were silent. The 
laughter continued; hut it was low. 
He could count in some degree on hav- 
ing regained attention. He drew a 
long breath, and went on : 

— This laugh that is on my face, it 
was a king who put it there. This 
laugh expresses universal desolation. 
Tliis laugh means hate, contains 
silence, madness, despair. This 
laugh is the result of tortures. This 
laugh is a forced laugh. If Satan 
had this laugh, this laugh would be 
a reproach to God. But the Eternal is 
not like the perishable ; being absolute, 
he is the just one ; and God hates what 
kings are doing. Ah I you take me for 
an exception ! I am a symbol. O all- 
powerful fools that you are, open your 
eyes ! I incarnate every thing. I rep- 
resent humanity, such as its masters 
have made it. Man is a mutilated being. 
That, which has been done to me, has 
been'done to the human race. Deform- 
ity has been stamped upon right, justice, 
truth, reason, intelligence — as, in me, 
upon the eyes, the nostrils, and the ears. 
As with me, there has been put in its 
heart a cloaca of anger and grief, and 
on its face a mask of contentedness. 
Where the finger of God was placed, 
the claw of the king has leaned hard. 
Monstrous laying on of hands! Bish- 
ops, peers, and princes ! the people is 
the profound sufferer, who laughs upon 
the surface. My lords, I tell you that 
I am the people. To-day you oppress 
them ; to-day you hoot at me. But the 
future is the darksome thawing out. 
What was stone becomes wave. The 
appearance of solidity changes into sub- 
mersion. A cracking, and all is said. 
An hour will come, when a convulsion 
will snap short your oppression, when 
a roaring will reply to your bootings. 
This hour is come already — you were 
of it, 0 my father ! — this hour of God 


did come, and it was called Republic ; 
it was driven away ; it will return. In 
the mean while, hear in mind that the 
series of kings armed with the sword 
was interrupted by Cromwell armed 
with the axe ! Tremble 1 The incorrupti- 
ble dissolutions draw near ; the clipped 
talons push out again; the torn-out 
tongues take to flight, become tongues 
of fire scattered to the wind of darkness, 
and howl in the infinite ; they who are 
hungry show their idle teeth ; paradises 
built over hells totter ; there is suffer- 
ing, there is suffering, there is suffering, 
and that which is above leans over, and 
that which is below gapes open ; the 
shadow asks to become light ; the 
damned discuss the elect; it is the 
people that are on-coming. I tell you, 
it is man who ascends ; it is the end that 
is beginning ; it is the red dawning of 
catastrophe — and this is what there is 
in this laugh, at which you are laugh- 
ing ! London is a perpetual fete. Be 
it so. England is, from end to end, one 
acclamation. Yes. But hearken : All 
that you see is myself. You have your 
festivals — ^they are my laugh. You 
have public rejoicings — ^they are my 
laugh. You have marriages, consecra- 
tions, coronations — they are my laugh. 
You have births of princes — they are 
my laugh. Above you, you have the 
thunder — ^it is my laugh ! 

How to hold out against such things I 
The laugh recommenced, and this time 
it was overwhelming. Of all the lava 
that the human mouth jets forth, the 
most corrosive crater is delight. No 
crowd resists the contagion of doing ill 
in high glee. It is not on the scaffold 
that all executions take place ; and men, 
so soon as they are gathered together, 
he they multitude or assembly, have in 
the midst of them an executioner ever 
ready— who is sarcasm. No torment com- 
parable to his, who is miserable and ri- 
diculous. Gwynplaine underwent this 
torment. Hilarity, over him, was ston- 


320 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


ing and grape-shot. He was coral- 
rattle and manikin, Turk’s head and tar- 
get. 'They bounded on their seats; 
they cried encore! they writhed; 
they stamped their feet ; they clutched 
hold of each other’s collars. The ma- 
jesty of the place, the purple of the 
robes, the purity of the ermine, the vo- 
luminousness of the wigs, made no dif- 
ference. The lords laughed, the bish- 
ops laughed, the judges laughed. The 
old men’s bench smoothed its wrinkles, 
the children’s bench wriggled. The 
Archbishop of Canterbury jogged the 
elbow of. the Archbishop of York. 
Henry Compton, Bishop of London, 
brother of the Earl of Northampton, 
was holding his sides. The lord-chan- 
cellor lowered his eyes, to hide his pro- 
bable laugh. And at the bar, that statue 
of respect, the usher of the black rod, 
was laughing. 

Gwynplaine, very pale, had crossed 
his arms ; and, surrounded by all these 
faces, young and old, whereon a grand 
Homeric jubilation was radiant — in this 
whirlwind of hands clapping, and stamp- 
ing feet, and hurrahs — in this maddened 
bulfoonery, whereof he was the centre 
— in this splendid outpouring of hilar- 
ity — in the midst of this prodigious 
gayety — he had, within him, the sep- 
ulchre. All was over. He could no 
longer master his face that betrayed 
him, nor his audience that insulted him. 

Never had that eternal and fatal 
law — the grotesque riveted to the sub- 
lime, the laugh reverberating the roar, 
parody riding on the same horse be- 
hind despair, the misconstruction be- 
tween what seems and what is — blazed 
out with more of horror. Never had a 
more sinister light lighted up profound 
human darkness. 

Gwynplaine assisted at the definitive 
breaking down of his destiny, by an 
outburst of laughter. Therein was the 
remediless. Y"ou may get up again, 
when fallen ; you canhot get up again, 


when pulverized. This mockery, ab- 
surd yet sovereign, ground him to dust. 
Nothing possible, henceforward. All 
depends on the position you are in. 
What was triumph at the Green-Box 
was fall and catastrophe- in the Cham- 
ber of Peers. Applause, away yonder, 
was imprecation here. He was sensible 
of something like the reverse of his 
mask. On one side of this mask, there 
was the popular sympathy accepting 
Gwynplaine; on the other, the hate of 
the grandees rejecting Lord Fermain 
Clancharlie. On one side, attraction ; 
on the other, repulsion — both drawing 
him toward the shade. He felt as 
though he were struck from behind. 
Fate has treacherous blows. All will 
b*e explained hereafter ; but, meanwhile, 
destiny is a snare, and man falls into 
traps. He had thought to mount up ; 
this derision was his welcome. Apothe- 
oses have lugubrious endings. There 
is a sombre phrase — to be sobered by 
intoxication. Tragic wisdom, that is 
born of drunkenness. Gwynplaine, 
enveloped in this gay and ferocious 
temper, began to dream. 

With the current all one way, laugh- 
ter is immoderate. A jocund assembly 
is the compass lost. They knew no 
longer where they were driving, nor 
what they were doing. It was neces- 
sary to close the sitting. 

The lord-chancellor, in view of the 
incident, adjourned the following up the 
vote until the next day. The House 
broke up. The lords made their bows 
to the royal chair, and went away. 
Their merriment was heard, prolonging 
and losing itself in the corridors. As- 
semblies, besides their official doors, 
have — in the tapestries, in the relievos, 
and in the mouldings — aU sorts of hid- 
den exits, by which they empty them- 
selves, as a vase through its cracks. In. 
brief space, the hall was deserted. 
This is done very quickly, and without 
intermediate state. These abodes of 


WOULD BE GOOD BROTHER IF HE WERE NOT GOOD SON, 321 


tumult are suddenly taken possession 
of by silence. 

Sinking into revery leads far on; 
and, by force of dreaming, vre end by 
being as though in another planet. 
Gwynplaine all at once experienced a 
sort of waking. lie was alone. The 
hall was empty. He had not even no- 
ticed that the sitting was adjourned. 
All the lords had disappeared, even his 
two sponsors. There were only, here 
and there, some inferior officers of the 
Chamber, waiting for “his lordship’s” 
departure, to put on the covers and ex- 
tinguish the lights. Mechanically, he 
put his hat on his head, left his bench, 
and directed himself to the main door 
opening upon the gallery. At the mo- 
ment when he stepped over the separa- 
tion marked by the bar, a door-keeper 
relieved him of his peer’s robes. He 
was scarely aware of it. An instant 
afterward, he was in the gallery. 

The men on duty, who were there, 
remarked with surprise that this lord 
had gone out without saluting the 
throne. 

VIII. 

WOULD BE GOOD BROTnEE IF HE WERE 
NOT GOOD SON. 

There was no longer any one in the 
corridor. Gwynplaine passed across 
the circular recess, whence the arm- 
chair and the tables had been taken 
away, and where there remained no 
further trace of his investiture. Can- 
delabra and lustres, at certain distances 
apart, indicated the way out. Thanks 
to this line of light, he was easily able 
to find again, amid the series of saloons 
and galleries, the route that he had fol- 
lowed, on his arrival with king-at-arms 
and the usher of the black rod. He 
fell in with no one, save here and there 
some old slow-paced lord, marching ofiT 
heavily, with back turned to him. 

Suddenly, in the silence of all these 
21 


vast deserted halls, the loud outbreak 
of indistinctly-spoken words reached 
him, a nocturnal hubbub, singular in 
such a place. He turned his steps to 
the quarter where he heard it, and found 
himself at once in a spacious vestibule 
dimly lighted, which was one of the is- 
sues from the Chamber. There were 
seen a broad glazed door open, a flight of 
steps, lackeys, and torches ; beyond was 
an open place ; carriages were waiting 
at foot of the flight of steps.* 

Thence it was that the noise came, 
which he had heard. 

Withinside the door, under the sus- 
pended lamp of the vestibule, there 
was a tumultuous group of persons, and 
a storm of gesture and voice. Gwyn- 
plaine, in the partial obscurity, drew 
near. 

It was a quarrel. On one side there 
were ten or a dozen young lords want- 
ing to go out — on the other a man, with 
his hat on like them, and standing 
stiffiy with head thrown back, barring 
their passage. 

Who was this man ? Tom-Jim-Jack. 

Some of these lords were still in their 
peer’s robes ; the others had laid aside 
the parliamentary costume, and were 
in every-day dress. 

Tom-Jim-Jack had a plumed hat, not 
with white feathers like the peers’, but 
green, and tipped with otange. He 
was embroidered and covered with lace 
from head to foot, with streamers of 
ribbons and lace from his sleeves and 
his neck ; and he manipulated feverish- 
ly with his left hand the hilt of a sword, 
that he wore crosswise like a spritsail 
yard, the shoulder-belt and sheath 
being ornamented with an admiral’s 
anchor. 

He it was who was speaking, ad- 
dressing himself to all these young 
lords ; and Gwynplaine heard what fol- 
lows: 

— I said that you were cowards. You 
want me to retract my -words. Very 


322 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


well. Y’ou are not cowards. Y"ou are 
idiots. Y ou have ranged yourselves, all 
against one. That is not cowardice. 
Good. Then it is silliness. You have 
been spoken to ; you did not compre- 
hend. Here, the old are dull of hear- 
ing, and the young of intelligence. I 
am sufficiently one of yourselves, to tell 
you truths regarding yourselves. This 
new-comer is strange, and he has ut- 
tered a heap of absurdities, I allow ; 
but in the’se absurdities there were 
some things true. It was confused, ill- 
digested, badly said; so be it; he re- 
peated too often, “ Do you know ? do 
you know?” But a man, who was 
yesterday a grimace-maker at the fair, 
is not obliged to speak like Aristotle 
and like Doctor Gilbert Burnet, Bishop 
of Sarum. The vermin, the lions, the 
apostrophe to the sub-clerk — all that 
was in bad taste. Zounds! who says 
any thing to the contrary ? It was a 
mad-brained and desultory harangue, 
and one that went all awry ; but, here 
and there, there came out of it certain 
undeniable facts. It is much to speak 
thus, already when a man has not stud- 
ied the trade. I should like to see you 
at it, you! What he said about the 
lepers of Burton-Lazers is incontestable. 
Besides, he is not the first who has said 
foolish things. In short, my lords, I 
don’t approve of several persons being 
furious against a single one. Such 
is my mood, and I ask your lordships’ 
permission to be offended. You have 
ruffled me ; I am sorry for it. For my 
own part, I don’t believe much in God; 
but that, which would make me believe 
in Him, is His doing a good action, 
which does not happen every day. Thus 
I take it kindly of Him — of this good 
God, if He exists — His having drawn 
out from the dregs of this low life this 
peer of England, and His having re- 
stored his heritage to this heir; and, 
without troubling myself as to whether 
this does or does not suit my own af- 


fairs, I find it a grand sight, this sud- 
den change of the taper-worm into the 
eagle, of Gwynplaine into Clancharlie. 
My lords, I forbid you being of any 
other opinion than mine. I am sorry 
that Lewis de Duras is no^; here. I 
should be most happy to insult him. 
My lords, Fermain Clancharlie has been 
the lord, and you have been the mounte- 
banks. As for his laugh, it is not his 
fault. You have laughed at that laugh. 
There is no laughing at misfortune. 
You are ninnies. And cruel ninnies. 
If you believe that there can be no 
laughing at you also, you are mistaken ; 
you are ugly, and you are badly dressed. 
My Lord Haversham, I saw your mis- 
tress, the other day; she is hideous. 
Duchess, but a she-ape. Gentlemen 
laughers, I repeat that I should like 
much to see you try to say four words 
consecutively. Many men chatter ; 
very few speak. You think that you 
know something, because you have 
dragged out your do-nothing terms at 
Oxford or at Cambridge, and because, 
before being Peers of England on the 
benches of Westminster Hall, you were 
asses on the college benches of Gone- 
will and of Caius ! For myself, here I 
am, and I am ready to look you in the 
face. You have been impudent with 
this new lord. A monster; granted. 
But given up to beasts. I would rather 
be he, than you. I attended the sitting, 
in my place, as heir presumptive to a 
peerage, and I heal’d all. I had not 
the right to speak; but I have the 
right to be a gentleman. Y^our joyous 
airs annoyed me. When I am not con- 
tent, I would go upon Mount Pendlehill 
to pluck the bramble of the clouds, the 
cloud-berry which brings the thunder- 
bolt down on whoever tears it up. That 
is why I came to wait for you as you 
went out. It is useful to confer ; and 
we have arrangements to make. Did 
you even take it into your heads that 
you were in the least necessary to me ? 


WOULD BE GOOD BROTHER IF HE WERE NOT GOOD SON. 323 


My lords, I have a settled intention of 
killing some among you. All you who 
are here, Thomas Tufton, Earl of 
Thanet — Savage, Earl Rivers — Charles 
Spencer, Earl of Sunderland — Lawrence 
Hyde, Earl of Rochester — you, barons. 
Gray of Robleston, Cary Hunsdon, Es- 
crick, Rockingham — you, little Carteret 
— you Robert Darcy, Earl of Holderness 
— you, William, Viscount Halton — and 
you, Ralph, Duke of Montague — and all 
others who may wish it — I, David 
Dirry-Moir, one of the soldiers of the 
fleet, summon and call you out ; and I 
order you to provide promptly your 
seconds and sponsors ; and I await you 
face to face, and breast to breast, this 
evening, at once, to-morrow, by day, by 
night, under the full sun, by torchlight, 
where and when and how it may seem 
good to you, everywhere where there is 
space enough for two lengths of swords ; 
and you will do well to look to the locks 
of your pistols and the sharpness of your 
rapier-points, seeing that I propose to 
make your peerages vacant. Ogle Cav- 
endish, proceed warily, and think of 
your device : Cavendo tutus ! Marma- 
duke Langdale, it will be wise for you, 
like your ancestor Gundold, to have 
yourself followed by a cofiin ! George 
Booth, Earl of Warrington, you will 
never see again the county palatine 
of Chester, and your labyrinth after the 
fashion of that of Crete, and your lofty 
turrets of Dunham Massie ! As for 
Lord Vaughan, he is young enough to 
utter impertinences, and too old to be 
responsible for them ; for his words, I 
shall call to account his nephew, Rich- 
ard Vaughan, member of the Commons, 
for the borough of Merioneth ! You, 
John Campbell, Earl of Greenwich, I 
shall kill you as Achon killed Matas, 
but by a fair-stricken blow, and not from 
behind, being accustomed to show my 
heart, and not my back, to the point of 
the two-handed sword. And it is said, 
my lords. Whereupon, use witchcraft, 


if so it seem good to you ; consult for- 
tune-tellers ; grease your skins with 
unguents and drugs, that make men 
invulnerable ; hang round your necks 
the devil’s or the Virgin’s amulets ; — 
I will fight with you blessed or cursed, 
and there shall be no need to feel you 
over to ascertain if you have any sor- 
cerer’s charms upon you. On foot, or 
on horseback. In full meeting of cross- 
roads, if you please ; in Piccadilly, or 
at Charing Cross ; and the street shall 
be unpaved for our encounter, as the 
court-yard of the Louvre was unpaved 
for the duel of Guise and Bassompierre. 
All. Do you hear ? I want you all. 
Dorme, Earl of Caernarvon, I will make 
you swallow my blade up to the hilt, as 
Marolles did to Lisle-Marivaux ; and 
we will see afterward, my lord, whether 
you wiU laugh. You, Burlington, who, 
with your seventeen years, have the air 
of a girl, you shall have the choice of 
being buried in the greensward of your 
house of Middlesex, or in your beauti- 
ful garden of Londesburgh in Yorkshire. 
I make it known to your lordships, that 
it does not suit me that any one should 
be insolent before me. And I will 
chastise you, my lords. I find it ill, 
that you have scoffed at Lord Fermain 
Clancharlie. He is of greater worth 
than you. As ClancharUe, he has the 
nobility that you have ; as Gwynplaine, 
he has the mind that you have not. 
I make, of his cause, my cause ; of his 
affront, my affront ; and of your sneers, 
my indignation. We shall see who will 
come out of this affair, living; for I 
provoke you to the death, do you un- 
derstand ? and to every weapon, and to 
every mode of combat ; and choose you 
the death that pleases you I And, since 
you are clowns as well as gentlemen, I 
proportion the challenge to your quali- 
ties; and I offer you all the methods 
that men have for being killed, from 
the sword of the prince to the fist of 
the blackguard ! 


324 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


To tMs furious discharge of words, 
all the haughty group of young lords 
responded by a smile : — Agreed ! cried 
they. 

— I choose the pistol, said Burling- 
ton. 

— I, said Escrick, the ancient combat 
of the lists, with mace and dagger. 

— I, said Holderness, the duel with 
two knives, the long and the short, 
naked upward from the waist, and 
body to body. 

— Lord David, said the Earl of Tha- 
net, you are a Scotchman. I choose the 
claymore. 

— I the sword, said Eockingham. 

— I, said the Duke Ealph, I prefer 
boxing. It is more noble. 

Gwynplaine came out from the 
shadow. 

He directed his steps toward him 
whom he had heretofore named Tom- 
Jim-Jack, but in whom he now began 
to discern something else. 

— I thank you, said he. But this 
concerns me. 

All the heads were turned. 

Gwynplaine advanced. He felt him- 
self impelled toward this man, whom 
he heard called Lord David, and who 
was his defender, and more still per- 
haps. Lord David recoiled. 

: — Stop ! said Lord David. It is you ! 
You are here! That happens well. I 
had also a word to say to you. You 
spoke, not long since, of a woman who, 
after having loved Lord Linnscus Clan- 
charlie, had loved the king, Charles 11. 

— It is true. 

— Sir, you have insulted my mother! 

— Your mother! cried Gwynplaine. 
In that case, I guessed it was so, we 

are . . . 

— Brothers, continued Lord David. 

And he slapped Gwynplaine’s face. 

— We are brothers, resumed he ; <.nd 
for that reason we can fight. There is 
no fighting, save between equals. Who 
is more our own equal than our brother ? 


I will send you my seconds. To-mor- 
row, we will cut each other’s throats. 


BOOK IX. 

m BUI N.. 

I. 

EXCESS OF MISEEY IS EEAOnkD THEOTTGH 
EXCESS OF GEANDEUE. 

As one o’clock in the morning was 
sounding at St. Paul’s, a man, who had 
just crossed London bridge, entered 
into the lanes of Southwark. There 
were no lamps alight, the custom being 
then, in London as in Paris, to put out 
the public lights at midnight — that is to 
say, to suppress the lanterns at the mo- 
ment when they became necessary. 
The streets, being dark, were deserted. 
No lamps — that makes few passers-by. 
The man walked rapidly. He was 
strangely dressed, for perambulating 
the streets at such an hour. He had 
an embroidered silk coat, a sword at 
his side, a hat with white plumes, and 
no cloak. The watchmen, who saw 
him go by, said, “ There’s a lord, who 
has Jaid a wager.” And they stood out 
of his way, with the respect due to a 
lord and to a bet. 

This man was Gwynplaine. 

He had taken fiight. 

How was -it with him? He did not 
know. The soul, as we have remarked, 
has its cyclones, its fearful gyrations, in 
which aU is commingled — sky, sea, day, 
night, life, death — in a sort of unintel- 
ligible horror. You can no longer 
breathe what is real. You are over- 
whelmed by things in which you have 
no faith. Nothingness is transformed 
into a hurricane. The firmament has 
turned wan. The infinite is void. The 
absent is present. Y’ou feel that you 
are dying. You crave for a star. "What 


EXCESS OF MISERY, ETC. 


325 


did Gwynplaine experience? — a thirst 
to see Dea. 

He felt nothing, save this alone. To 
regain the Green-Box, and the Tad- 
caster Inn, with its noise and its light 
and the good hearty laugh of the peo- 
ple; to find TJrsns again and Homo; 
to see Dea again ; to reenter into life ! 

Disillusions unbend themselves like 
the how, with sinister force, and launch 
the arrow, man, at what is true. Gwyn- 
plaine was in haste. He drew near the 
Tarrinzeau-Field. He walked no long- 
er ; he ran. His eyes plunged into the 
darkness in advance. He sent out his 
look before him — the look yearning for 
a port on the horizon. What a moment, 
when he was on the point of seeing the 
lighted-up windows of the Tadcaster 
Inn ! 

He came out upon the bowling-green. 
He turned a corner of a wall, and had 
in face of him, at the other end of the 
meadow and at some distance, the inn, 
which, it will be remembered, was the 
only house upon the fair-ground. 

He looked. Ho light. A black 
mass. 

He shuddered. Then he said to him- 
self that it was late, that the tavern was 
closed, that it was all plain enough, that 
they were asleep, that he had only to 
wake up Hicless or Govicum, that he 
must proceed to the inn, and knock at 
the door. And he went. He did not 
run to it. He precipitated himself 
upon it. 

He reached the inn, entirely out of 
breath. You are full of anguish, you 
are struggling in the soul’s invisible 
convulsions, you know no longer 
whether you be dead or alive — and you 
have, for those whom you love, aU sorts 
of delicate scruples ; it is hereby that 
true hearts are recognized. In the gen- 
eral engulfment, tenderness rises to the 
surface. Hot to wake Dea abruptly 
was Gwynplaine’s immediate heed. 

He approached the inn, making the 


least possible noise. He knew the 
hole, old kennel of the watch-dog, 
where Govicum slept; this hole, ad- 
joining the low-pitched room, had a 
small window looking out on to the 
bowling-green. Gwynplaine scratched 
softly on the pane. It would be suffi- 
cient to wake Govicum. 

There was no movement in Govi- 
cum’s bedroom. At. his age, said 
Gwynplaine to himself, sleep is sound. 
He tapped lightly, with the back of his 
hand, upon the window. Hothing 
stirred. 

He struck more sharply, and two 
knocks. Ho one budged in the dog- 
hole. Then, with a slight shudder, he 
went to the door of the inn, and 
thumped. 

Ho one answered. 

He thought, not without the begin- 
ning of a deadly chill : — Master Hicless 
is old; children sleep soundly, and old 
men heavily. Come ! harder still ! 

He had scratched. He had knocked. 
He had thumped. He thundered. This 
brought back to him, from a distance, 
the recollection of Weymouth, when he, 
being little, had Dea, also little, in his 
arms. 

He thundered violently, like a lord. 
Alas ! he v%s one. 

The house remained silent. 

He felt that he was becoming dis- 
tracted. 

He no longer kept within bounds. 
He shouted : — Hicless ! Govicum ! 

At the same time, he looked up at 
the windows, to see if any candle were 
alight. 

Hothing in the inn. Hot a voice. 
Hot a noise. Hot a light. 

He went to the main entrance gate, 
and thundered on it, and pushed it, and 
shook it madly, crying out: — Ursus! 
Homo ! 

The wolf did not howl. 

A cold sweat stood in beads on his 
brow. 


326 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


He threw his eyes around him. The 
night was thick ; but there were stars 
enough to make the fair-ground dis- 
tinct. He saw one thing lugubrious — 
the vanishing of every thing. There 
was not a single booth remaining on 
the green. The circus was no longer 
there. Not a tent. Not a trestle. 
Not a caravan. The vagabondage, with 
its thousand noises, that had swarmed 
there had given place to an indescrib- 
able blackness, savage and void. All 
had gone away. 

A maddening anxiety seized upon 
him. "What was the meaning of this ? 
"What, then, had happened ? Was there 
no longer anyone? Was it that his 
life had fallen into pieces behind him ? 
What had been done with them, with 
all? Ah ! good God ! He threw him- 
self, like a tempest, on the house. 
Furious with fright and agony, he 
struck with fist and foot upon the side- 
door, upon the main gate, upon the 
windows, upon the shutters, upon the 
walls. He called Nicless, Govicum, 
Fibi, Vinos, TJrsus, Homo. All ex- 
clamations, all noises, he hurled them 
against this enclosure. At intervals, 
he paused and listened ; the house re- 
mained dumb and dead. Then, ex- 
asperated, he began again. Shocks, 
knockings, cries, the rattle of succes- 
sive blows, made echoes around. It 
might have been said, that thunder was 
essaying to waken the tomb. 

A man becomes terrible, under the 
influence of a certain degree of affi’ight. 
He, who is ^ afraid of every thing, is 
no longer afraid of any thing. He 
kicks the sphinx. He abuses the infi- 
nite. Gwynplaine renewed all this tu- 
mult under every possible form, stop- 
ping, going on again, inexhaustible in 
his cries and callings, as he stormed 
this tragic silence. 

He called, a hundred times, upon all 
those who might have been there; 
shouted all the names, with the excep- 


tion of Dea’s. Precaution, scarcely 
known to himself, but whereof he still 
had the instinct in his frenzy. 

Cries and calls being spent, there re- 
mained escalade. The house must be 
entered. But how? He broke a win- 
dow-pane in Govicum’s den, thrust in 
his wrist, tearing his flesh, drew back 
the bolt of the sash-work, and opened 
the little window. He perceived that 
his sword would be in his way; he 
snatched at it angrily, sheath, blade, and 
belt, and threw it down on the pave- 
ment. Then he raised himself up by 
the projections of the wall, and, though 
the window was narrow, could pass 
through it. He penetrated into the 
inn. 

Govicum’s bed, dimly visible, was in 
the dog-hole; but Govicum was not 
there. For Govicum not to be in his 
bed, it must needs be that Nicless was 
not in his own. All the house was in 
darkness. In this gloomy interior, the 
mysterious immobility of emptiness 
might be felt, and that vague horror 
which signifies ; There is no one here. 
— Gwynplaine convulsively traversed 
the drinking-room, knocked upon the 
tables, trampled the plates and dishes 
under foot, turned the benches over, 
upset the jugs, strode over the furniture, 
and went to the door that opened into 
the court-yard, and broke it in by press- 
ure of his knee that sent the latch fly- 
ing. The door turned on its hinges. 
He looked into the yard. The Green- 
Box was no longer there. 

II. 

SETTLIXG-TJP. 

Gwynplaine left the house, and set 
himself to exploring the Tarrinzeau- 
Field in every direction. He went all 
around, wherever, the evening before,- 
a trestle, a tent, or a hut was seen. 
There was no longer any thing. He 


SETTLING-UP. 


327 


knocked at the stalls, though -well 
knowing that they were not inhabited. 
He heat upon every thing that resem- 
bled window or door. Hot a voice 
came forth from this obscurity. Some- 
thing like death had come that way. 

The ant-hill had been crushed. Pal- 
pably, the police had been at work 
there. There had been what, in our 
day, would be called a razzia. The 
Tarrinzeau-Field was more than de- 
serted ; it was desolated, and in every 
nook the scratching of a ferocious talon 
might be perceived. They had, so to 
say, turned inside out the pockets of 
this miserable fair, and cleaned them 
out. Gwynplaine, after having ferreted 
everywhere, left the bowling-green, en- 
tered the winding streets at the end 
called the East Point, and turned his 
steps toward the Thames. 

He traversed several zigzags of this 
net-work of lanes, where was nothing 
but walls and hedges ; then he felt in the 
air the freshness of the water ; he heard 
the dull gliding of the stream; and 
suddenly found himself before a parapet. 
It was the parapet of the Effroc-stone. 

This parapet bordered a portion of 
the quay, very short and very narrow. 
Below the parapet, the lofty wall of 
the Effroc-stone ran down perpendic- 
ularly into the dark water. 

Gwynplaine made a halt at this par- 
■ apet, leaued his elbow on it, took his 
head between his hands, and set him- 
self to ruminating, having that water 
beneath him. 

Was he looking at the water? Ho. 
At what was he looking ? At the shade. 
Hot at the shade around and outside 
of him, but at the shade within him. 

In the melancholy night-landscape 
whereto he paid no heed, in that exter- 
nal obscurity whereinto his look did 
not penetrate, the outlines of masts and 
yards might be distinguished. Below 
the Effroc-stone there was the stream 
only; but the quay down the river 


sloped gradually lower, and ended, at 
some distance, in a bank, alongside of 
which were several small craft, some 
having arrived and others being about 
to sad. These communicated with the 
land by little jetties of stone or wood, 
to which they were moored, or by 
gangways of plank. These vessels, 
some made fast, the others at anchor, 
were without movement. Hot a step 
nor a voice was heard, inasmuch as it is 
the sailor’s wise habit to sleep as much 
as he possibly can, and only to get up to 
work. If any one of these vessels was 
to start at high water, no one on board 
was yet awake. Scarcely discernible 
were the hulls — black blisters — and 
the rigging made up of threads com- 
mingled with ladders. It was confused 
and livid. Here and there a red lantern 
punctured the mist. 

Gwynplaine saw nothing of all this. 
Destiny was what he was consider- 
ing. 

He was dreaming — a visionary dis- 
tracted before inexorable reality. 

He seemed to hear behind him some- 
thing resembling an earthquake. It 
was the laughter of the lords. 

From this laugh he had just escaped. 
He had escaped from it, smitten in the 
face. 

Smitten by whom ? 

By his brother. 

And in escaping from this laughter, 
with this buffet on him, taking refuge, 
wounded bird, in his nest — flying from 
hate, and in search of love — what had 
he found? 

Darkness. 

Ho one. 

Every thing disappeared. 

He compared this darkness to the 
dream that he had had. " 

What a downfall ! 

Gwynplaine had reached that sinister 
verge — empty space. The Green-Box 
removed was the universe vanished out 
of sight. 


328 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


A closing-up of his soul had taken 
place. 

What could have happened ? Where 
Tvere they? They had evidently been 
carried off. His destiny had come up- 
on him, Gwynplaine, in one blow— gran- 
deur ; and upon them in a rebounding 
blow — annihilation. It was clear that 
he would never see them again. Pre- 
cautions had been taken to this end. 
And at the same time violent hands had 
been laid upon all that inhabited the 
fair-ground, so that no tidings might 
reach him. Inexorable dispersion. 
That fearful social force, while pulver- 
izing him in the Chamber of Peers, had 
ground them to powder in their poor 
cabin. They were lost. Dea was lost. 
Lost for him. Forever. Powers of 
Heaven ! where was she ? ’ And he had 
not been there to defend her ! 

Forming conjectures as to the absent, 
whom we love, is to put ourselves up- 
on the rack. He inflicted this torture 
on himself. At each corner into which 
he plunged, at each supposition that he 
made, there was a gloomy inward 
groan. 

Athwart a succession of poignant 
ideas, he called to mind a man evident- 
ly ominous, who had told him that his 
name "was Barkilphedro. This man 
had inscribed upon his brain something 
obscure, that now reappeared to him ; 
and it had been written in an ink so 
horrible, that now it was in 'letters of 
fire. In the depth of his imagination, 
Gwynplaine saw these enigmatical 
words, now made plain, flaming up : — 
Destiny does not open one door, with- 
out closing another. 

All was consummated. The last 
shadows were upon him. Every man 
may have, in his destiny, his own pe- 
culiar ending of the world. This is 
termed despair. The soul is full of fall- 
ing stars. 

Observe just what his position was. 

A cloud of vapor had passed by. He 


had been mixed up with this vapor. It 
had thickened over his eyes ; it had en- 
tered into his brain. He had been, ex- 
ternally, blinded ; internally, intoxi- 
cated. This had lasted so long as a 
cloud is in passing. Then all was dis- 
sipated — the vapor, and his life. Awak- 
ened from this dream, he found himself 
again alone. 

All vanished away-. All gone. All 
lost. Night. Nothing. Such was his 
horizon. 

He was alone. 

“Alone” has its synonyme: “dead.” 

Despair is an accountant. He keeps 
his books in order. Nothing escapes 
him. He sums up every thing; he 
does not pass over the smallest coin. 
He reproaches God with the thunder- 
claps and the pin-pricks. He desires 
to make up his mind as to destiny. He 
reasons, weighs, calculates. 

Gloomy external chill, beneath which 
the burning lava continues te run. 

Gwynplaine examined himself, and 
examined Fate. 

The backward survey is a fearful 
summing up. 

When at the top of the mountain, we 
look at the precipices. When we have 
fallen to the foot, we look at the 
sky. 

And we say : I was there ! 

Gwynplaine was at the lowest depth 
of wretchedness. And how quickly it 
had come upon him ! Hideous prompt- 
itude of iU fortune! It is so heavy, 
that we believed it slow. By no means. 
It seems as though the snow, being 
cold, ought to share the paralysis of 
winter, and, being white, the immo- 
bility of the winding-sheet. To aH this 
the avalanche gives the lie. 

The avalanche is snow converted into 
a furnace. It remains congealed, yet it 
devours. The avalanche had enwrapped 
Gwynplaine. He had been torn off like 
a rag, uprooted like a tree, hurled like 
a stone. 


SETTLING-UP. 


329 


He went over the incidents of Ms 
fall. He put questions to himself, and 
answered them. Grief is an interrog- 
atory. No judge is so minutely par- 
ticular, as the conscience in examining 
its own report. 

In his despair, how much was there 
of remorse I 

He desired to clear up this point with 
himself, and anatomized his conscience 
— mournful vivisection ! 

His absence had caused a catastrophe. 
Had this absence depended on himself? 
In all that had just taken place, had he 
been a free agent? No. He had felt 
himself a prisoner. "What was it that 
had arrested and detained him? A 
prison? No. A chain? No. What, 
then, was it ? He had been glued fast 
in greatness. 

To whom has it not happened, to be 
free in appearance, and to feel that his 
wings are hampered ? 

There had been something lilte a 
trap laid. What was temptation at 
first, ended by being captivity. 

Nevertheless — and upon this point 
his conscience was not easy — ^had he 
simply submitted to what had offered 
itself? No. He had accepted it. 

It was true enough, that violence 
and surprise, in a certain degree, had 
been employed upon him; but he, on 
his part, in a certain degree, had let 
matters take their course. It was not 
his fault that he had allowed himself to 
be carried off; it had been of his own 
weakness that he had allowed himself 
to become intoxicated. There had been 
a moment, a decisive moment, when 
the question had been put to him ; this 
Barkilphedro had brought him face to 
face with a dilemma, and had distinctly 
given Gwynplaine the opportunity of 
determining his fate by a word. Gwyn- 
plaine might have said “no.” He had 
said “ yes.” 

From this “yes,” uttered while in a 
state of giddiness, every thing had fol- 


lowed. Gwynplaine comprehended 
this. Bitter after-taste of acquiescence. 

Still — for he debated within himself— 
was it, then, so grievous an error to re- 
enter upon his rights, upon his patri- 
mony, upon his heritage, into his house, 
and, being patrician, upon the rank of 
his ancestors, and, being an orphan, 
upon his father’s name ? What had he 
accepted? A restitution. Made by 
whom ? By Providence. 

Then a reaction came over him. 
How stupid an acceptance! What a 
bargain he had made ! How foolish an 
exchange ! He had negotiated at a loss 
with this providence ! What ! to have 
two millions of revenue, to have seven 
or eight lordships, to have ten or a 
dozen palaces, to have town-houses and 
country-seats, to have a hundred lack- 
eys, and packs of hounds, and carriages, 
and armorial bearings, to be judge and 
legislator, to be coroneted and robed 
in purple like a king, to be baron and 
marquis, to be peer of England — he had 
given Ursus’s booth and Dea’s smile! 
For immensity, in which a man is swal- 
lowed up and shipwrecked, he had 
given happiness I F or the ocean, he had 
given the pearl ! O madman ! O fool I 
0 dupe ! 

But notwithstanding — and here the 
objection came again upon a solid foot- 
ing — in this fever of high fortune that 
had seized him, all had not been un- 
wholesome. Perchance there might 
have been egotism in renouncing; per- 
chance the acceptance was a duty. 
Abruptly transformed into a lord, what 
ought he to have done? Complication 
of events brings about perplexity of 
mind. This is what happened to him. 
Duty giving its orders in inverted sense, 
duty on all sides at once, duty complex 
and well-nigh contradictory — this bug- 
bear had been upon him. It was this 
bugbear that had paralyzed him, no- 
tably on the passage from Corleone 
Lodge to the Chamber of Peers, which 


330 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


lie had not opposed. What in life is 
called mounting up, is the transition 
from a simple to a disquieting itinerary. 
Where, henceforth, is the direct line? 
Toward whom is the first duty ? Is it 
toward our neighbors ? Is it toward 
the human race ? Do we not pass from 
the small family to the large? We 
mount up, and we feel a burden on 
our probity that grows heavier. The 
higher up, the greater the obligation. 
The breaking-out of light makes the 
duty greater. We have the pressure 
on us, p)erhaps the illusion of several 
pathways offering themselves at the 
same time, and at the entrance of each 
of which we imagine that we see the 
indicating finger of conscience. Where 
to go ? to issue forth ? to remain ? to 
advance? to fall back? What to 
do? It is strange that duty should 
have places where its cross-roads 
meet. Responsibility may be a laby- 
rinth. 

And, when a man is possessed by 
one idea, when he is the incarnation 
of a fact, when he is symbolic man, and at 
the same time man in the fiesh and in the 
bones, is not responsil Tity more irk- 
some still ? Thence the anxious docil- 
ity and the mute anxiety of Gwyn- 
plaine; thence his obedience to the 
summons to take his seat. The thought- 
ful man is often the passive man. It 
had seemed to him, that he heard even 
the injunction of duty. Was not this 
entry into a place, where oppression 
might be discussed and combated, the 
realization of one of his profoundest aspi- 
rations? When speech was given to him 
— to him the formidable social sample, 
to him the living specimen of the good 
pleasure under which for six thousand 
years the human race has had its death- 
rattle — ^had he the right to refuse it? ■ 
Had he the right to remove his head 
from beneath the tongue of fire falling 
from on high, and coming to settle it- 
self upon him ? 


In the hidden and giddy pleadings of 
conscience, what had he said to him- 
self? this : — The people are silence. I 
shall be the mighty advocate of this 
silence. I wiU speak for the dumb. I 
will speak of the small to the great, 
and of the feeble to the strong. That 
is the aim of my fate. God wills what 
He wills, and He accomplishes it. Certes 
it is surprising that that gourd of that 
Hardquanonne, wherein was the met- 
amorphosis of Gwynplaine into Lord 
Olancharlie, should have floated for fif- 
teen years upon the waves, in the bil- 
lows, in the surf, in the squalls, and 
that all this turmoil should have wrought 
it no harm. I see wherefore. There 
are secret destinies ; ’ I hold the key of 
mine ; and I open my enigma. I am 
predestined. I have a mission. I shall 
be the lord of the poor. I shall speak 
for all the despairing silent ones. I 
shall interpret this stammering. I shall 
interpret the grumblings, the bowlings, 
the murmurs, the tumult of crowds, the 
complaints ill pronounced, the unintelli- 
gible voices, and aU these cries of beasts, 
that through ignorance and through suf- 
fering man is forced to utter. The 
noise of men is inarticulate, as the noise 
of the wind ; they cry out. But they 
are not understood; and there is cry- 
ing equivalent to holding their peace, 
and holding their peace is their disarm- 
ing. Compulsory disarming, that calls 
for succor. I will be the succor. I 
will be the denunciation. I will be tho 
Word of the people. Thanks to me, 
there shall' be an understanding. I will 
be the bleeding’mouth, whence the gag 
is snatched out. I will say every thing. 
It will be grand — 

Yes, to speak for the dumb is fine; 
but to speak to the deaf is saddening ! 
That way was the second part of his 
wandering. 

Alas ! he had miscarried. 

He had miscarried irremediably. 

This elevation in which he had put 


SETTLING-UP. 


331 


faith, this lofty fortune, this likelihood, 
had sunk away beneath him. 

What a fall, to tumble into the spume 
of laughter ! 

He thought himself strong, he who, 
during so many years, had floated, re- 
gardful soul, amid the vast outspread 
of sufferings ; he was bringing back a 
lamentable cry from all this gloom. He 
had just been stranded on that colossal 
reef, the frivolousness of the happy. 
He thought himself an avenger ; he was 
a clown. He thought to thunder ; he 
had tickled. In place of emotion, he 
had reaped mockery. He had sobbed ; 
and merriment had ensued. Under this 
merriment, he had gone to the bottom. 
Funereal engulfment! 

And at what had they laughed? At 
his laugh. 

Thus, this execrable violence where- 
of the trace was on him for evermore, 
this mutilation become mirth in perpe- 
tuity, this stigmatic grin, image of the 
supposititious contentment of nations 
under their oppressors, this mask of 
joy manufactured by torture, this depth 
of grimace imprinted on his visage, this 
cicatrice significant of jussu regis^ this 
verification of outrage committed by 
the king upon him, symbol of outrage 
committed by royalty upon the whole 
people — this it was that triumphed 
over him, this it was that overwhelmed 
him ; it was accusation against the ex- 
ecutioner turned into sentence upon 
the victim ! Prodigious denial of jus- 
tice! Eoyalty, after having disposed 
of his father, had disposed of him. The 
evil, that had been done, served as pre- 
text and motive for the evil that re- 
mained to be done. Against whom 
were the lords indignant ? Against the 
torturer? Ho. Against the one who 
was tortured. Here, the throne ; there, 
the people. Here, James II. ; there, 
Gwynplaine. Assuredly, this confron- 
tation brought to light a wicked at- 
tempt, and a crime. What was the 


wicked attempt ? Complaining. What 
was the crime ? Suffering. Let misery 
hide itself and be silent ; if not, it is 
high-treason. And these men, who 
had dragged Gwynplaine upon the 
hurdle of sarcasm, were they wicked ? 
No ; but they had, they too, their fa- 
tality — they were fortunate. They 
were executioners, without knowing it. 
They were in good-humor. They had 
found Gwynplaine useless. He had 
laid open his belly, he had drawn out 
his liver and his heart, he had laid bare 
his entrails — and they had cried to him : 
“ Play your farce ! ” Heart-breaking 
fact, he himself had laughed I A fear- 
ful chain bound in his soul, and pre- 
vented his thought from mounting up- 
ward to his countenance. The disfig- 
uration reached to his mind, and, 
while his conscience was indignant, his 
face gave it the lie, and grinned. All 
was ended. He was the Man Who 
Laughs, Caryatid of the world that 
weeps. He was anguish petrified into 
hilarity, bearing the weight of a uni- 
verse of woe, and walled forever in mer- 
riment, in irony, in others’ entertain- 
ment. He scared, with all the op- 
pressed of whom he was the incarna- 
tion, the abominable fatality of being a 
desolation not taken seriously ; his dis- 
tress was matter for sport ; he was an 
indescribable and enormous buffoon 
coming out from a terrific condensation 
of adversity, escaped from his convict- 
bagnio, past-divinity, elevated from the 
dregs of the populace to the foot of the 
throne, mingled with constellations; 
and, after having enlivened the lost, he 
enlivened the elect. All that he had 
in him of generosity, of enthusiasm, 
of eloquence, of heart, of soul, of fury, 
of anger, of love, of inexpressible grief, 
ended in this — a peal of laughter. And 
he verified, as he had said to the lords, 
that his case was not an exception ; 
that it was the normal fact, common, 
universal, the vast sovereign fact, so 


332 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


amalgamated with the routine of liv- 
ing, that it was scarcely perceived any 
more. The starveling laughs ; the 
beggar laughs; the convict laughs; 
the orphan, to gain his livelihood, 
laughs; the slave laughs; the soldier 
laughs; the people laugh. Human 
society is compounded in such fashion, 
that all perditions, all indigences, 
all catastrophes, all fevers, all ulcers, 
all agonies, resolve themselves, above 
the bottomless pit, into a terrific 
grimace of joy. He himself was this 
totality of grimace ; it was he. The 
law from on high, the unknown 
power that governs, had willed that 
a visible and palpable spectre, a spec- 
tre of blood and bone, should sum up 
in itself the monstrous parody that 
we call the world ; he was that spec- 
tre. 

Destiny without cure. 

He had cried: — Mercy for the suf- 
ferers. — ^In vain. 

He had desired to av^ken pity ; he 
had awakened horror. That is the law 
for spectral apparitions. 

At the same time as spectre, he was 
man. Therein was the poignant com- 
plication. Spectre without, man with- 
in. Man, more than any others per- 
haps, for in his double lot all mortality 
was summed up. And, whilst he had 
humanity within him, he was sensible of 
it beyond him.- 

There was in his existence something 
insuperable. "What was he? A dis- 
inherited man ? No ; for he was a lord. 
What was he? A lord? No; for he 
was a rebel. He was the light-bearer ; 
terrible kill-joy. He was not Satan, as- 
suredly ; but he was Lucifer. He came 
sinister, torch in hand. 

Sinister for whom ? For the sinister. 
Dreadful to whom? To the dreaded. 
Therefore they rejected him. Take 
place among them? Be accepted? 
Never. The obstacle that he bore up- 
on his face was fearful; but the ob- 


stacle that was in his ideas was more in- 
surmountable still. His speech had ap- 
peared more deformed than his counte- 
nance. He thought no thought that was 
possible in this world of the great and 
the powerful, wherein one fatality had 
given him birth, and wherefrom another 
fatality had made him emerge. There 
was a mask between mankind and his 
face, and a wall between society and 
his mind. In mingling, from his infancy 
— wandering mountebank — with the 
vast centre of vivacity and robustness 
that is termed the crowd, in saturating 
himself with the magnetism of the mul- 
.titude, in impregnating himself with 
the immense human soul, he had lost, in 
the common sense of all the world, the 
special appreciation of the ruling class- 
es. High up, it was impossible. He 
came, all dripping from the water of 
the well of truth. He had upon him 
the fetid odor of the abyss. He was 
repugnant to these princes, perfumed 
with lies. To him, who lives upon fic- 
tion, truth is poisonous. He, who is 
athirst for flattery, vomits up the 
real, imbibed by surprise. What he, 
Gwjnplaine, brought, was not pre- 
sentable. What was it ? — reason, wis- 
dom, justice. It was rejected with dis- 
gust. 

Bishops were there. To them he 
brought God. What was this intru- 
sion ? 

The opposite poles recoil from each 
other. No amalgamation possible. 
There is lack of transition. This for- 
midable meeting of opposites had been 
seen, having no other result than a cry 
of anger — all misery concentrated in one 
man, face to face with aU pride con- 
centrated in one caste. 

To accuse is useless. To establish is 
sufilcient. Gwynplaine, in this medita- 
tion on the verge of his destiny, estab- 
lished the thorough uselessness of his 
effort. He established the deafness of 
high places. The privileged have no 


SETTLING-UP. 


ear toward the disinherited. Is it the 
fault of the privileged? No. It is 
their law, alas! Forgive them! To 
feel emotion would he to abdicate. 
Where lords and princes are, nothing 
must he expected. Inexorable is he, 
who is satisfied. For the well-filled, 
the starving have no existence. The 
fortunate are in ignorance, and hold 
aloof. On the threshold of their para- 
dise, as on the threshold of hell, must 
be written: — “Leave behind every 
hope ! ” 

Gwynplaine had met with the recep- 
tion of a spectre, entering the abode 
of the gods. 

Hereupon, all that he had in him 
•rose up. No ; he was not a spectre — 
he was a man. He had told them, 
he had cried it to them, he was 
Man. 

He was not a phantom. He had pal- 
pitating flesh. He had a brain, and he 
thought ; he had a heart, and he loved ; 
he had a soul, and he hoped. Having 
hoped too much was even all his 
fault. 

Alas ! he had so far exaggerated hope, 
as to believe in that thing, glittering 
and obscure, society. He, who was 
outside, had reentered it. 

Society had, at once and at the out- 
set, made him three offers, and given 
him its three gifts, marriage, family, 
and caste. Marriage? He had seen 
prostitution on the threshold. Fam- 
ily ? His brother had smitten him on 
the face, and awaited him, next day, 
sword in hand. Caste ? It had just 
burst out laughing in his face, he being 
a patrician, he being miserable. He was 
rejected, almost even before being ad- 
mitted. And his first three steps in 
this deep social shadow had opened be- 
neath him three gulfs. 

An d it was by a traitorous transfig- 
uration that his disaster had been begun. 
And this catastrophe had approached 
him under the aspect of apotheosis. 


333 

“ Mount up ! ” had signified “ Go 
down ! ” 

He was, as it were, the reverse of 
Job. It was through prosperity that 
adversity had come upon him. 

0 tragical human enigma ! Take note 
of the ambushes. A child, he had con- 
tended with the night, and had proved 
the stronger. Man, he had contended 
with destiny, and had beaten it to the 
ground. From disfigured, he had made 
himself radiant, and, from unfortunate, 
happy. Of his exile, he had made an 
asylum. Vagabond, he had contended 
with space, and, like the birds of heav- 
en, had found therein his crumbs of 
bread. Savage and solitary, he had 
contended with the crowd, and had 
made of it a friend. Athlete, he had 
contended with that lion, the people, 
and had tamed it. Poor, he had con- 
tended with distress, he had faced the 
sombre necessity of living, and, by force 
of blending all the joys of the heart 
with misery, he had made for himself 
riches out of poverty. He had been 
enabled to imagine himself the van- 
quisher of life. All at once, new forces 
had come in against him from the 
depth of the unknown, no more with 
menaces, but with caresses and smiles ; 
love, Draconian and material, had ap- 
peared to him, all absorbed in love 
angelic ; the flesh had seized him, who 
lived in the ideal ; to the light of the 
true had succeeded the fascination of the 
false ; for it is not the flesh that is the 
real — it is the soul. The flesh is cin- 
der ; the soul is flame. For this group 
bound to him by the relationship of 
poverty and of toil, and which was his 
true natural family, had been substi- 
tuted the social family, family by blood, 
but of blood that was tainted; and 
even before entering into it, he had 
found himself face to face with a fratri- 
cide in embryo. Alas ! he had allowed 
himself to be reclassed in that society, 
of which Brantbme, whom he had not 


334 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


read, had said : “ The son may properly 
challenge the father to a duel.” Fatal 
fortune had cried to him: ‘‘You are 
not of the crowd ; you are of the chosen 
ones I ” and had opened the social ceil- 
ing above his head as it were a trap- 
door in the sky, and had launched him 
through this opening, and had caused 
him to spring up, unexpected and sav- 
age, in the midst of princes and mas- 
ters. Suddenly, around him, in place 
of the people who applauded, he had 
seen the lords who cursed him. Mel- 
ancholy metamorphosis ! Ignominious 
amplification I Eude spoliation of all 
that had been his felicity ! Pillage of 
his life, by hue and cry ! Eooting up 
of Gwynplaine, of Clancharlie, of lord, 
of mountebank, of his earliest condition, 
of his new condition, by peckings from 
the beaks of aU these eagles ! 

Of what use was it to have begun 
life, at the outstart, by victory over 
obstacle? Of what use to have tri- 
umphed at first ? Alas ! it was needful 
that he should be precipitated, or, other- 
wise, destiny had not been fulfilled. 

Thus, half by force and half willingly 
—for, after the wapentake, he had to 
deal with Barkilphedro, and in his ab- 
duction there was consent — he had 
quitted the real for the chimerical, the 
true for the false, Dea for Josiane, love 
for pride, liberty for power, work proud 
and poor for opulence charged with ob- 
scure responsibility, the shade wherein 
is God for the glitter wherein are de- 
mons, Paradise for Olympus ! 

He had bitten into golden fruit. He 
spat out a mouthful of cinder. 

Lamentable result. Eout, bank- 
ruptcy, falling in ruins, insolent expul- 
sion of all his hopes scourged away by 
grinning, unmeasured disillusion. And 
what to do henceforward ? If he looked 
to the morrow, what did he see? — a 
naked sword, of which the point was 
at his breast and the handle in his 
brother’s hand! He saw only the 


hideous glistening of the sword. All 
the rest — Josiane, the Chamber of 
Peers — was behind, in a monstrous 
chiaroscuro fiUed with tragic outlines. 

And this brother, who had seemed 
to him to be chivalrous and manly. 
Alas ! this Tom- Jim- Jack who had de- 
fended Gwynplaine, this Lord David 
who had defended Lord Clancharlie — 
he had scarcely had a glimpse of him ; 
he had only had time enough to be 
smitten by him, and to love him ! 

What discouragements ! 

NTow, to proceed onward. Impossi- 
ble. There was falling to pieces on 
every side. Besides, to what purpose? 
In the depth of despair, all is weari- 
ness. • 

The trial had been made, and was 
not to be begun again. 

Gwynplaine was a player, who has 
played out aU his trumps. He had al- 
lowed himself to be dragged to the 
formidable gambling-house. Without 
specially calling himself to account for 
what he did — such is the subtle poison- 
ing of illusion — ^he had staked Dea 
against Josiane ; he had got a monster. 
He had staked IJrsus against a family ; 
he had got an insult. He had staked 
his mountebank’s trestle against the 
seat of a lord ; he had got acclamation 
and imprecation. 

His last card had just fallen on the 
fatal green cloth of the deserted bowl- 
ing-green. Gwynplaine had lost. There 
was nothing more for him, but to pay. 
Pay, miserable one ! 

The thunderstricken do not quiver 
much. Gwynplaine was motionless. 
Whoever had seen him from a distance 
thus in the shade, stiff and without 
movement, beside the parapet, would 
have thought he saw a stone standing 
up. 

Hell, the serpent, and revery, twist 
themselves fold upon fold. Gwynplaine 
descended the sepulchral spirals of the 
depth of thought. 


SETTLINQ-UP. 


335 


He contemplated tKe world, whereof 
he had just had a glimpse, with that cold 
look which is the look definitive. Mar- 
riage, hut no love ; family, hut no fra- 
ternity ; wealth, hut no conscience ; 
beauty, hut no modesty; justice, hut 
no equity; order, hut no equilibrium ; 
power, hut no intelligence ; authority, 
but no right; splendor, hut no radiance. 
Inexorable balance of account I He 
made the tour of that supreme vision, 
in which his thought was plunged. He 
examined One after the other, destiny, 
liis position, society, and himself. What 
was destiny ? — a snare. His position ? 
—despair. Society ? — hatred. Him- 
self? — a vanquished man. And, from 
the depth of his soul, he exclaimed : — 
Society is the stepmother. Nature is 
the mother. Society is the world of 
the body; nature is the world of the 
soul. The one leads to the cofiin, to 
the pine-box in the trench, to the earth- 
worms ; and finishes there. The other 
leads to outspread wings, to transfigu- 
ration in the morn, to ascent into fir- 
maments ; and there it recommences. 

By degrees, the paroxysm took hold 
of him. Fatal whirling ! Things that 
are finishing throw out a final gleam, 
wherein all is discerned. 

He, who passes judgment, confronts. 
Gwynplaine placed before himself what 
society had done for him, and what na- 
ture had done. How good had nature 
been for him 1 How she had aided him, 
she who is the soul ! Every thing had 
been taken from him — every thing, even 
to his visage; the soul had restored 
every thing to him. Every thing, even 
the visage ; for there was here below 
a celestial blind one, made expressly for 
him, who saw not his ugliness, and who 
saw his beauty. 

And it was from this that he had per- 
mitted himself to be separated ! It was 
from this adorable being, it was from 
this heart, it was from this adoption, it 
was from this tenderness, it was from 


this divine blind look, the sole one up- 
on earth that saw him — that he had 
gone far away! Dea was his sister; 
for, between her and him, he felt 
the grand cerulean fraternity, the mys- 
tery that embraces all the sky. Dea, 
when he was little, had been his maiden ; 
for every boy-child has a maiden, and 
life always begins with a marriage of 
souls consummated in full innocence, 
by a pair of uninformed virginities. 
Dea was his spouse ; for they had the 
same nest on the highest branch of the 
deep-rooted tree Hymen. Dea was 
more stUl, she was his light ; without 
her, all was nothingness and void, and 
he saw around her an aureole of rays. 
What would he become, without Dea ? 
What to do with all that was himself? 
Nothing of himself could live without 
her. How, then, could he have been 
able to lose sight of her for a moment ? 
0 hapless one ! Between his star and 
himself he had let a digression take 
place, and, iu these redoubtable and 
unknown gravitations, digression rapid- 
ly becomes the abyss. Where was she, 
the star? ,Dea! Dea! Dea! Dea! 
Alas ! he had lost his light ! Take away 
the star, and what is the sky ? — black- 
ness. But why, then, had aU this pass- 
ed away ? Oh ! how full of happiness 
he had been ! God had remade Eden 
for him;— too completely, alas! even 
to letting the serpent reenter, though, 
this time, it was man, who had been 
tempted. He had been drawn out thence, 
and there, frightful snare, he had fallen 
into the chaos of black laughs, which is 
hell! Woe! woe! How terrific was 
all that had fascinated him I This Jo- 
siane — what was she ? Oh ! horrible 
woman, almost beast, almost goddess! 
Gwynplaine was at this moment on 
the reversed side of his elevation, and 
saw the very opposite of his bedazzle- 
ment. It was funereal. That lordship 
was deformed, that coronet was hide- 
ous, that purple robe was dismal, those 


336 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


palaces were poisoned, tliose trophies, 
those statues, those armorial emblazon- 
ments squinted ; the foul and traitorous 
air, that he had breathed there, made 
him mad ! Oh ! the rags'of the mounte- 
bank Gwjnplaine were lustrous. Oh ! 
where the Green-Box was, were pover- 
ty and joy, and the pleasant life of wan- 
dering together like the swallows. 
They did not leave each other ; they 
saw each other every minute ; in the 
evening, in the morning, at table, there 
was jogging of elbow and touch of 
knee ; they drank from the same glass ; 
the sun came in by the little window ; 
but he was the sun only, and Dea was 
love. At night, they felt that they 
were sleeping not far apart, and Dea’s 
dream came and hovered over Gwyn- 
plaine, and Gwynplaine’s dream came 
mysteriously to bloom into fulness 
above Dea! On waking, they were 
not quite sure that they had not ex- 
changed kisses in the azure cloud of 
dreamland. All innocence was in Dea ; 
all wisdom in Drsus. They prowled 
from town to town ; they had, for vi- 
aticum and fbr cordial, the frank and 
kindly gayety of the people. They 
were vagabond angels, having enough 
of humanity for walking here below, 
and not quite enough of wings for fly- 
ing away. And now — disappearance ! 
"Where was all that? Was it possible 
that all could be efiaced ? What wind 
from the tomb had blown? It was 
eclipsed ! It was lost ! Alas ! the dull 
omnipotence, that weighs heavily on 
the small, disposes of all that is in shad- 
ow and is capable of every thing. What 
had been done to them ? And he had 
not been there, he, to protect them, to 
throw himself across their way, to defend 
them, as lord, with his title, his nobili- 
ty, and his sword ; as mountebank, with 
his fists and his nails ! And here su- 
pervened one bitter thought, the most 
bitter perhaps of all — yet no, he could 
not have defended them. It was pre- 


cisely he who had ruined them. It was 
to keep him. Lord Clancharlie, clear of 
them, it was to isolate his dignity from 
contact with them, that the infamous 
social omnipotence had borne heavily 
upon them. His best mode of protect- 
ing them would be to disappear ; there 
would be no more reason for persecut- 
ing them. He out of the way, they 
would be left quiet. Freezing aper- 
ture, whereinto his thoughts entered ! 
Ah! whyhadhelet himself be separated 
from Dea ? Was not his first duty tow- 
ard Dea? To serve and defend the 
people ? but Dea — that was the people. 
Dea — that was the orphan, that was 
the blind one, that was humanity ! Oh ! 
what had been done with them ? Cruel 
dressing-up of regret! his absence had 
left the field clear for the catastrophe ! 
He would have shared their fate. Or 
he would have taken them and carried 
them off with him, where he would have 
buried himself with them. What to 
become, without them, now? Gwyn- 
plaine without Dea — was it possible ? 
Dea wanting, every thing was wanting. 
Ah ! all was over ! This well-loved 
group was buried forever in an irrepa- 
rable swooning away. All was ex- 
hausted. Besides, condemned and 
damned as Gwynplaine was, of what use 
were a longer struggle? There was 
nothing more to expect, either from 
man, or from Heaven. Dea! Dea! 
Where is Dea? Lost! What, lost! 
He, who has lost his soul, has but one 
spot left where he may find it again — 
death. 

Gwynplaine, distracted and full of 
woe, placed his hands firmly on the 
parapet, as though it had been a solu- 
tion, and looked at the stream. 

It was the third night since he had 
slept. A fever was on him. His ideas, 
that he imagined clear, were troubled. 
He felt the imperative need of sleep. 
He remained thus for some moments, 
leaning over the water. The shadow 


WATCn-DOG MAY BE GUARDIAN ANGEL. 


337 


offered Mm the grand tranquil bed; 
the infinite of darkness. Sinister temp- 
tation I 

He took off his coat, folded it, and 
placed it on the parapet. Then he un- 
buttoned his waistcoat. As he was 
about to take it off, his hand struck 
against something in the pocket. It 
was the red-book that the librarian of 
the House of Lords had presented to 
him. He drew out the memorandum- 
book from the pocket, examined it in 
the diffused night-light, saw a pencil in 
it, took the pencil, and wrote these two 
lines upon the first blank page that 
opened : 

— “I am going away. Let my 
brother David take my place, and be 
happy! ” 

And he signed it: Feemain Clan- 
CHAELIE, peer of England. 

Then he took off the waistcoat and 
laid it upon the coat. He took off his 
hat, and laid it upon the waistcoat. 
He put into the liat the red-book, 
opened at the page whereon he had 
written. He saw a stone on the ground, 
took it, and put it into the hat. 

This done, he looked up at the infi- 
nite space above his brow. 

Then, his head drooped down slowly, 
as though drawn by an invisible thread 
from the abyss. 

There was a hole in the stones of the 
base of the parapet. He put one foot 
into it, so that his knee was raised 
above the top of the parapet, and it was 
the easiest thing in the world to stride 
over it. 

He crossed his hands behind his 
back, and leaned forward. 

— So be it I he said. 

And he fixed his eyes upon the deep 
water. 

At that moment he felt a tongue lick- 
ing his hands. 

He shuddered, and turned round. 

It was Homo who was behind him. 


CONCLUSIOlSr. 

SEA AND NIGHT. 

I. 

WATCH-DOG MAY BE GTJAEDIAN ANGEL. 

Gwynplaine broke out into an ex- 
planation. 

— It is you, wolf ! 

' Homo wagged his tail ; his eyes glis- 
tened in the obscurity. He looked at 
Gwynplaine. 

Then he betook himself to licking his 
hands. Gwynplaine remained an in- 
stant as though intoxicated. He had 
experienced the shock of the prodigious 
reentry of hope. Homo, what an ap- 
parition ! During forty-eight hours, he 
had exhausted what we might term aU 
the variations of the thunder-stroke; 
it remained for him to receive the 
thunder-stroke of delight. It was this 
one that had just fallen on him. Cer- 
tainty regained, or at least the clearing- 
up that leads to it ; the sudden inter- 
vention of an inexplicable and myste- 
rious clemency, that may perchance be 
a portion of fate; life saying, “Here 
am I! ” at the darkest of the tomb, at 
the moment when there is no more to 
be expected, a sudden suggestion of 
cure and deliverance ; something like a 
foothold found again at the most criti- 
cal instant of a downward slip — Homo 
was all this. Gwynplaine saw the 
wolf as if irradiated. 

NTevSlrtheless, Homo turned away. 
He took a few steps, and looked back, 
as though to see if Gwynplaine were 
following him. 

Gwynplaine began walking after 
him. Homo wagged his tail, and con- 
tinued on his way. 

This way, on which the wolf pro- 
ceeded, was the slope of the Effroc- 
stone quay. This slope led to the bank 
of the Thames. Gwynplaine, con- 


22 


338 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


ducted by Homo, descended this slope. 
From time to time, Homo turned his 
head, to assure himself that Gwyn- 
plaine was behind him. 

In certain supreme situations, nothing 
so much resembles an intelligence com- 
prehending every thing, as the simple 
instinct of a loving beast. The animal 
is a lucid somnambulist. 

There are cases in which the dog 
feels impelled to follow his master; 
others, in which he feels impelled to 
precede him. Then the animal assumes 
the direction of the mental. The im- 
perturbable sense of smelling sees con- 
fusedly in our twilight. To make of 
himself the guide appears vaguely to the 
beast as a necessity. Does he know 
that there is a dangerous bit of ground, 
and that he must assist the man to pass 
it? No, probably. Yes, perhaps. In 
all cases, some one knows it for him. 
We have remarked already that very 
often in life august aid, that we think 
comes from below, comes reaUy from 
on high. We know not all the forms 
that God may assume. Wliat is the 
animal ? — ^providence. 

. Having reached the bank, the wolf 
went down upon the narrow strip of 
land that ran alongside the Thames. 

He did not utter any cry, he did not 
bark ; he walked on, mute. On aU oc- 
casions, Homo followed his instinct and 
did his duty, but with the pensive re- 
serve of the outlaw. 

After about fifty steps, he stopped. 
On the right, there was a jetty. At the 
end of this jetty, a sort of landing-place 
on piles, might be seen a dark mass, 
which was a tolerably large vessel. On 
the deck of this vessel, toward the 
bow, there was a very indistinct light, 
that looked like a night-lamp on the 
point of going out. 

The wolf assured himself for the last 
time that Gwynplaine was there, then 
bounded upon the jetty, a long passage- 
way planked and pitched, supported by 


open wood-work, and under which the 
water of the stream was flowing. In a 
few moments. Homo and Gwynplaine 
reached the point. 

The vessel moored at the end of the 
jetty was one of those tun-beUied 
Dutch craft, with two decks cut down, 
one forward, the other aft, having, in 
the Japanese style, between the two 
decks, a deep compartment entirely 
open, into which a straight ladder led 
down, and which was filled with all the 
packages of the cargo. This made a 
quarter-deck and forecastle, as in our 
old river packet-boats, with a hollow 
amidships. The freight ballasted this 
hollow. The paper-boats, that chil- 
dren make, have nearly this form. 
Under the decks were the cabins, com- 
municating by doors with this midship- 
compartment, and lighted by small 
port-holes in the side-planks. In stow- 
ing the cargo, passages were kept free 
between the packages. The two masts 
of these galliots were planted in the 
two decks. The mast on the forecastle 
was called the Paul ; the mast on the 
quarter-deck was called the Peter — the 
vessel being propelled by the two masts 
as the church by its two apostles. A 
narrow gangway, like a Chinese bridge, 
went from one deck to the other, above 
the midship compartment. In bad 
weather, the two boarded sides to the 
gangway were lowered, right and left, 
by a mechanical arrangement, so that 
a roof was made for the hollow com- 
partment, and the vessel, in high seas, 
was hermetically sealed. These very 
massive barks had a beam for tiUer, the 
power of the helm being proportioned 
to the heaviness of the draught. Three 
men, the master and two seamen, with 
a youngster, the cabin-boy, were enough 
tc manoeuvre these ponderous sea- 
machines. The decks forwaiHi and aft 
were, as we have said, without rail. 
This particular galliot was a large, full- 
bottomed hull, all black; and on it 


WATCH-DOG MAY BE GUAEDIAN ANGEL. 


339 


might be read, in white letters, visible 
by night : Vograat^ Rotterdam. 

At that period, several occurrences 
at sea, and the quite recent catastrophe 
of the Baron Pointi’s eight ships at 
Cape Carnero,* in compelling all the 
French fleet to fall back upon Gibraltar, 
had swept the Channel, and cleared 
the passage between London and Eot- 
terdam of every ship-of-war, so that 
merchant-ships could come and go, 
without escort. 

The galliot on which Vograat might 
have been read, and close to which 
Gwynplaine had arrived, touched the 
jetty with the larboard side of her af- 
ter-deck, almost on a level. It was 
but one step to go down. Homo, with 
a bound, and Gwynplaine with a stride, 
were on board. Both found themselves 
on the quarter-deck. The deck was 
deserted, and no movement was visible ; 
the passengers — if there were any, and 
it was probable that there were — ^had 
embarked, seeing that the galliot was 
ready for a start, and that the stowage 
of freight was completed, this being indi- 
cated by the filling up of the hollow 
compartment, encumbered with bales 
and cases. But they had without doubt 
gone to bed, and were probably asleep 
in the ’tween-decks, as the passage was 
to be begun by night. Under such cir- 
cumstances, the passengers would only 
appear on deck the next morning, on 
waking. As for the crew, they were 
very likely eating their supper, while 
waiting for the start now near at hand, in 
the hole then called the sailor’s cabin. 
Thence the solitude of the forecastle- 
deck and the quarter-deck, connected 
by the gangway. 

Upon the jetty, the wolf had almost 
galloped ; on board the galliot, he had 
taken to walking slowly, as though with 
discretion. He no longer wagged his 
tail joyfully, but with the sad and feeble 


oscillation of a restless dog. Still, in 
advance of Gwynplaine, he crossed the 
quarter-deck and traversed the gang- 
way. 

Gwynplaine, on stepping upon this 
passage-way, saw a glimmer before him. 
This was the light that he had seen 
from the bank. A lantern was placed 
on the deck, at the foot of the forward 
mast ; and the reflection from this lan- 
tern cut out, in black relief upon the 
deep gloom of the night, a form that 
had four wheels. Gwynplaine recog- 
nized Ursus’ old hut. 

This poor wooden hovel, cart, and 
cabin, wherein his childhood had rolled 
along, was secured at the foot of the 
mast by thick cords, the knots of which 
were visible among the wheels. After 
having so long passed out of service, 
it was in a veritable state of decay. 
FTothing dilapidates men and things so 
much as abstaining from occupation ; 
it had a wretched leaning to one side. 
Disuse had made it quite paralytic ; 
and, besides, it had that incurable mal- 
ady, old age. Its outline, shapeless 
and worm-eaten, bent over in the atti- 
tude of ruin. All its component parts 
had a damaged look; the iron-work 
was rusty, the leather was cracked, the 
wood-work was rotten. Cracks starred 
the glass of the front window, traversed 
by a ray of light from the lantern. The 
wheels were indented. The partitions, 
the flooring, and the axle-trees seemed 
to be worn out with fatigue. The 
whole together was an inexpressible 
compound of the broken down and of 
the humbled. The two shafts, pointed 
upward, had the look of two arms 
raised to heaven. The booth was dis- 
jointed in all its parts. Underneath it. 
Homo’s chain might be distinguished, 
hanging down. 

Life and happiness and love being 
found anew, it would seem to be the 
law and also the will of nature, to run 
toward them at fullest speed and to 


* Slst of April, 1T05. 


340 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


precipitate ourselves upon tliem. Yes, 
save in case of deep-felt trembling. 
Whoever emerges, all shaken and dis- 
concerted, from a series of catastrophes 
that smack of treachery, becomes pru- 
dent, even in his joy; fears lest he bring 
down his own fatality upon those whom 
he loves ; feels himself to be mournfully 
contagious ; and uses precaution while 
advancing in felicity. Paradise is re- 
opened; before entering it again, we 
scrutinize it. 

Gwynplaine, tottering under his emo- 
tions, looked about him. 

The wolf had gone silently to lie down 
near his chain. 

II. 

BAEZILPHEDEO, AIMING AT THE EAGLE, 
SHOOTS THE DOVE. 

The door-step of the hut was low- 
ered ; the door was ajar ; there was no 
one inside ; the little light, that found 
its way in by the front window, vaguely 
shaped out the interior of the hovel in 
a dismal chiaroscuro. Ursus’ inscrip- 
tions, glorifying the grandeur of lords, 
were distinct upon the decrepit boards, 
at once external wall and internal 
wainscoting. On a nail near the door, 
Gwynplaine saw his leather-collar and 
his hooded cloak, as in a Morgue the 
garments of a corpse. 

The hut hid something that was 
stretched upon the deck at the foot of 
the mast, and on which the lantern 
threw its light. It was a mattress, 
whereof one corner was perceptible. 
On this mattress some one was prob- 
ably lying. The shadow of a move- 
ment could be seen. 

There was speaking. Gwynplaine 
listened, concealed by the intervening 
of the hut. 

It was Ursus’ voice. 

This voice, so harsh in its outer notes 
and so tender beneath them, that had 
hectored so much and yet conducted 


Gwynplaine so well since his childhood, 
had no longer its sagacious and lively 
ring. It was vague and deep, and lost 
itself in sighs at the close of each phrase. 
It bore but a confused resemblance to 
Ursus’ simple and firm voice of old. It 
was like the word of some one whose 
happiness is dead. 

Ursus seemed to be engaged in a mono- 
logue, rather than a dialogue. F urther- 
more — as you know — ^it was his habit 
to soliloquize. From this cause, he 
passed for a maniac. 

Gwynplaine held his breath, so as not 
to lose a word of what Ursus was say- 
ing ; and this is what he heard : 

— This sort of vessel is very danger- 
ous. It has no bulwark. If you take 
a roU at sea, nothing stops you. If 
there should be bad weather, it would 
be necessary to put her down under 
deck, which would be terrible. An 
awkward movement, an alarm — and 
there would be a rupture of an aneurism. 
I have seen samples of it. Ah I good 
God, what will become of us ? Is she 
asleep ? Yes. She is sleeping. I do 
believe she is sleeping. Is slie uncon- 
scious? Mo. She has a pulse strong 
enough. Certainly, she is asleep. Sleep 
is a reprieve. It is profitable blindness. 
How to manage, so that no one may 
come stamping his feet this way ? Gen- 
tlemen, if there is any one there on 
deck, I implore you make no noise. 
Do not come near us, if it is the same 
to you. Y"ou understand — a person of 
delicate health — there must be consid- 
eration. She has a fever on her, you 
see. She is quite young. It is a little 
one, who has a fever. I have spread 
this mattress outside, that she may get 
a little air. I explain this, that atten- 
tion may be paid to it. She has fallen 
upon the mattress from exhaustion, as 
though she had fainted away. But she 
is sleeping. I would not have any one 
wake her. I address myself to women, 
if there are any ladies on board. A 


BAEKILPHEDEO, ETC. 


341 


young girl is an object for pity. We 
are only poor mountebanks ; I ask for 
a small matter of kindness, and then, 
if there is any thing to pay for no noise 
being made, I will pay it. I thank you, 
ladies and gentlemen. Is any one there ? 
No. I don’t think there is any one. I 
speak at a dead loss. So much the bet- 
ter. Gentlemen, I thank you if you are 
there, and I thank you much if you are 
not there. — Her forehead is all in per- 
spiration. — Come, let us get back to the 
hulks, let us resume the collar! Mis- 
ery has returned. Here we are falling 
to the ground. A hand, a fearful hand 
that we do not see, but that we feel al- 
ways on us, has suddenly shifted us 
round to the dark side of destiny. So 
be it; we will have courage. Only, 
she must not be ill. It is absurd of me 
to be talking aloud thus, all alone ; but 
she must absolutely feel that she has 
some one near her, if she comes to wake. 
Provided that they don’t wake her up 
abruptly ! No noise, in Heaven’s name ! 
A shock, that made her start up sud- 
denly, would be good for nothing. It 
would be abominable to have any one 
walking this way. I believe the people 
sleep on board. I thank Providence 
for so much gained. Well, well; and 
Homo, where is he ? In aU this turning 
upside down, I forgot to chain him up. 
I no longer know what I am doing ; it 
is more than an hour since I saw him. 
He must have gone to look for his sup- 
per outside. I hope no harm has hap- 
pened to him ! Homo 1 Homo ! 

Homo flopped his tail gently against 
the deck-plank. 

— You are there! Ah! you are 
there. Thank God! Homo lost would 
have been too much. She is changing 
the position of her arm. Perhaps she 
is going to wake up. Be quiet. Homo ! 
The tide is coming down. We shall 
soon start. I think it will be fine to- 
night. There is no north wind ; the 
pennant clings to the mast; we shall 


have a good passage. I don’t know 
how it is about the moon. But the 
clouds scarcely move. There will be 
no sea. We shall have fine weather. 
She is pale. That is from weakness. 
But, no, she is red ; that’s fever. But, 
no, she is rosy ; she is well. I don’t see 
through it clearly any more. My poor 
Homo, I don’t see through it clearly 
any more. Then, we must begin life 
again. We are going to betake our- 
selves again to work. Tiiere are no 
more than we two, do you see? We 
will work for her, you and I. She is 
our child. Ah! the vessel is moving. 
We are ofif. Adieu, London! Good- 
evening ! Good-night ! The devil take 
you. Ah ! that horrible London ! 

There was, in fact, on board the gal- 
liot, the dull stir of getting a-trip. The 
interval was widening between the 
jetty and the stern. There might be 
seen at the other end of the vessel, 
abaft, a man standing up, the master 
doubtless, who had just come out from 
the ’tween-decks, and had cast off the 
fastenings, and was managing the helm. 
This man, attentive only to the current 
— as is befitting, when one is made up 
of the double phlegm of a Dutchman 
and of a sailor — hearing nothing and 
seeing nothing but wind and water, 
bending over the end of the tiller, and 
fused with the obscurity, sw^ayed slow- 
ly across the quarter-deck, gliding to 
and fro from port to starboard, like a 
jjhantom with a beam upon its shoulder. 
He was alone upon the deck. So long 
as they w^ere in the river, no other sail - 
or was required. In a few minutes, 
the galliot was in the tide-way of the 
stream. She dropped down it, without 
pitching or rolling. The Thames, little 
troubled by the ebb, was calm. The tide 
carrying her on, the vessel went rapidly 
on her course. Behind her, the dark pa- 
geant of London disappeared in the mist. 

Ursus went on : 

— It’s all the same; I’ll make her 


342 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


take foxglove. I’m afraid of delirium 
coming on. She has perspiration in the 
palm of her hand. But what is it that 
we have done to the good God ? How 
quickly has all this misfortune come on 
us ! Hideous rapidity of e\il ! A stone 
falls ; it has claws — it is the hawk un- 
derneath the lark. It is destiny. And 
you are lying sick there, my sweet 
child! "We come to London. They 
tell us: — It is a grand city, that has 
splendid edifices. Southwark is a mag- 
nificent suburb. — We establish our- 
selves there. How, these are abomina- 
ble places. What would you have me 
do there? I am content to go away 
from it. We are at the 30th of April. 
I have always had a suspicion of the 
month of April. The month of April 
has only two fortunate days, the 5th 
and the 2Tth, and four unfortunate days, 
the 10th, the 20th, the 29th, and the 
oOth. This has been put beyond doubt 
by the calculations of Cardan. I would 
that to-day were over. To have started 
is some comfort. In the gray of the 
morning we shall be at Gravesend, and 
to-morrow evening at Kotterdam. 
Zounds I I wiU begin again the life of 
old days in the hut ; we will drag it, 
won’t we. Homo ? 

A light flopping announced the wolfs 
consent. 

TJrsus continued: 

— If one could get out of an affliction 
as one gets out of a town. Homo, we 
might still be happy. Alas! there is 
always the one who is no more. A 
shadow rests upon those who survive. 
You know. Homo, whom I mean. We 
were four ; we are no more than three. 
Life is only a long losing of all that we 
love. We leave behind us a train of 
griefs. Fate astounds us by a lengthen- 
ing out of unbearable sufferings. After 
that, people are surprised that old folks 
are given to tiresome repetitions. It is 
despair that maizes blockheads. My 
brave Homo, the fair wind holds on. 


We see no more at all the dome of St. 
Paul’s. Wo shall soon pass in front of 
Greenwich. That will be six good 
miles done. Ah! I turn my back forever 
on these odious capitals, full of priests, 
of magistrates, of populaces. I prefer 
to see the leaves quivering in the woods. 
— Her forehead all the time in perspira- 
tion ! She has a swelling of her violet 
veins upon the arm, that I don’t like. 
It is the inward fever. Ah! all that 
kills me. Sleep, my child ! Oh, yes, 
she is asleep ! 

Here a voice was heard, an ineffable 
voice, that seemed far away, that ap- 
peared to come simultaneously from the 
heights and from the depths, divinely 
iU-omened — the voice of Dea. 

All that Gwynplaine had experienced, 
up to that moment, was no longer any 
thing. His angel was speaking. He 
seemed to hear words spoken outside 
of life, in a swoon that was full of 
Heaven. 

The voice said : 

— He was right to go away. This 
world is not that which is essential for 
him ; only, I must go with him. Father, 
I am not ill ; I heard what you said just 
now. I am well, I am quite well ; I 
have been asleep. Father, I am about 
to be happy. 

— My child, asked Ursus, with ago- 
nized accent, what do you mean by 
that? 

The answer was : 

— Do not be uneasy, father. 

There was a pause, as though for re- 
covering breath : then these few words, 
spoken slowly, reached Gwynplaine : 

— Gwynplaine is no more there. It 
is now that I am blind. I did not know 
what night was. Night is absence. 

The voice stopped again; then re- 
sumed : 

— I was always fearful that he might 
fly away ; I felt that he was celestial. 
He has taken flight suddenly. It is 
thus that it ought to have ended. A 


BAEKILPHEDKO, ETC. 


343 


soul goes up like a bird. But the nest 
of tbe soul is at a depth where there is 
a great loadstone that draws every 
thing, and well do I know where to 
find Gwynplaine again. I am not 
troubled about my way, look you! 
Father, it is yonder. You will rejoin 
us hereafter. And Homo, too. 

Homo, hearing his name uttered, 
flopped a slight blow upon the deck. 

— Father, continued the voice, you 
understand well that, from the moment 
when Gwynplaine is not there, the 
thing is ended. If I would remain, I 
could not, because one must absolutely 
have breath, We must not ask what 
is not possible. I was with Gwyn- 
plaine; it was very simple; I lived. 
How Gwynplaine is no more here, I die. 
It is all the same. Either he must come 
back, or I must go away. Since he 
cannot come back, I am going. To die 
is very good. It is not difficult at all. 
What is extinguished here, father, 
is relighted elsewhere. To live on this 
earth, where we are, is heart-breaking. 
It cannot be, that we are to be always 
wretched. Therefore, we go away to 
what you call the stars; we marry 
there ; there is no more separation there, 
forever; we love each other, we love 
each other, we love each other; and 
therein is the good God. 

— Hush I said Ursus, do not be ex- 
cited ! 

The voice persevered : 

— Welf, for instance, last year, in the 
spring of last year, we were together, 
we were happy ; how wide the differ- 
ence now I I do not recollect now in 
what little town we were ; there were 
trees; I heard the linnets sing. TVe 
came to London. That changed all. It 
is not a reproach that I am making. 
We come into a country; we cannot 
know it. Do you remember, father, 
one evening there a woman in the large 
box, and you said : — It is a duchess ! — 
and I was sad ? I believe it would have 


been better worth while to remain in 
the small towns. Thereupon, Gwyn- 
plaine has done well. How it is my 
turn. Since it was you yourself who 
told me that I was very little, that my 
mother was dead, that I was on the 
ground at night with the snow falling 
on me, and that he, who was also little 
and all alone also, picked me up, and 
that it was thus that I came into life, 
you cannot be surprised that I feel now 
within me the imperative need of set- 
ting off, and that I desire to go and seek 
in the tomb whether Gwynplaine is 
there. Because the only thing that ex- 
ists in life is the heart, and after life 
the soul. You can make out, father, 
the meaning of what I say; can you 
not? What is it. then that is moving? 
It seems to me that we are in a house 
that moves. Still, I don’t hear the 
noise of.wheels. 

After a pause, the voice added : 

— I cannot well distinguish between 
yesterday and to-day. I do not com- 
plain. I do not know what happened ; 
but something must have taken place. 

These words were uttered with pro- 
found but inconsolable sweetness ; and 
a sigh, that reached Gwynplaine, ended 
thus : 

— I must go, unless at least he comes 
back. 

Ursus gloomily mumbled out in low 
tone : 

— I don’t believe in ghosts. 

He went on : 

— It is a bark. You ask why the 
house moves ; it is because we are in a 
bark. Calm yourself. You must not 
talk too much. If, daughter, you have 
any little regard for me, do not agitate 
yourself, do not give yourself fever. At 
my age, I could not bear any illness 
that you might have. Spare me ; do 
not be ill ! 

The voice began again : 

— Of what use to seek upon earth, 
as we can only find in Heaven ? 


344 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


Ursus answered, with almost an ap- 
proach to authority : 

— Be calm. There are moments when 
you cannot understand every thing. 
I advise you to remain at rest. After 
all, you are not bound to know what 
the “ vena cava ” is. I should be at 
ease, if you were at ease. My child, do 
something also for me. He picked you 
up, but I gathered you in. You make 
yourself ill. That is wrong. You must 
calm yourself, and sleep. AU will go 
well ; I swear to you, on my word of 
honor, that all will go well ; besides, we 
are having specially fine weather. It is 
like a night made expressly. To-morrow 
we shall be at Rotterdam, which is a 
town in Holland, at the mouth of the 
Meuse. 

— Father, said the voice, look you, 
inasmuch as it has been since childhood, 
and that we have always been together, 
it must not be that this should be de- 
ranged; otherwise, one must die, and 
there is no way to do any thing else. 
I love you well, all the same; but I 
feel strongly that I am no longer entire- 
ly with you, though I am not yet with 
him. 

— Come, said IJrsus, try to go to sleep 
again. 

The voice replied : 

— It is not that, that will fail me. 

IJrsus responded, with an intonation 
that trembled greatly : 

— I tell you that we are going into 
Holland, to Rotterdam, which is a 
city. 

— Father, continued the voice, I am 
not ill. If it is this that troubles you, 
you may reassure yourself. I have no 
fever. I am a little warm, that is all. 

Ursus stammered : 

— At the mouth of the Meuse. 

— I am well enough, father; but, 
look you, I feel that I am dying. 

— Do not bethink yourself of any 
such thing! said Ursus. 

And he added : 


— Above all, my God, may she have 
no shock ! 

There was silence. 

All at once Ursus exclaimed : 

— What are you doing? Why are 
you raising yourself up ? Remain lying 
down, I beseech you I 

Gwynplaine shuddered, and advanced 
his head forward. 

III. 

PAEADISE FOUXD AGAIIT HEEE BELOW. 

He saw Dea. She had just raised 
herself straight up on the mattress. 
She wore a long white gown carefully 
closed, which allowed only the slope 
of her shoulders and their delicate junc- 
tion with her neck to be seen. The 
sleeves hid her arms ; the folds covered 
her feet. Her hands were visible ; and 
in them the network of bluish veins, hot 
with fever, branched off and swelled 
out. She was shivering, and waved 
to and fro like a reed, rather than tot- 
tered. The lantern threw a light on 
her from below. Her face was inde- 
scribably beautiful. Her hair was float- 
ing, unbound. Hot a tear was coursing , 
on her cheeks. In her eyeballs there 
was something of fire and something 
of night. She was pale, with the pal- 
lor that resembles life divine upon an 
earthly countenance. Her exquisite 
and frail form was, as it were, lost and 
mingled in the foldings of her dress. 
She waved to and fro in all her person, 
like the trembling of a flame. And at 
the same time, it was felt that she was 
beginning to be naught but shadow. 
Her eyes, opened to the full, shone bril- 
liantly. Y'ou would have said that this 
was a coming forth from the sepulchre, 
and a soul upstanding in the morning 
dawn. 

Ursus, whose back only was seen by 
Gwynplaine, lifted up his frightened 
arms. 


PAEADISE FOUND AGAIN HEEE BELOW. 


345 


— Daughter I Ah! good God, here 
is delirium taking hold of her. De- 
lirium! That is just what I feared. 
There must he no shock, for that might 
kill her : and yet there should be one, 
to save her from becoming mad. Dead, 
or mad ! What a situation ! Daughter, 
lie down again ! 

NTevertheless, Dea still spoke. Her 
voice was almost indistinct, as though 
some celestial obstacle was already in- 
terposed between her and earth. 

— You are mistaken, father, I am not 
delirious. I understand perfectly all 
that you tell me. You tell me that 
there are crowds of people, that they 
are waiting, and that I must play this 
evening. I am quite willing ; you see 
that I am in ray senses ; but I do not 
know how to do it, since I am dead and 
since Gwynplaine is dead. For myself, 
I am coming, all the same. I consent 
to play. Here I am ; but Gwynplaine 
is not here any more. 

— My child, repeated IJrsus, come, 
obey me. Lie down on the bed again. 

— He is no more here! He is no 
more here ! Oh ! how black it is ! 

— Black! stammered IJrsus; that’s 
the first time she ever said that 
wmrd ! 

Gwynplaine, with no more noise 
than that of gliding, mounted the first 
step. of the hut, entered it, unhooked 
his hooded cloak and his leather collar, 
threw the cloak over his back, put the 
collar over his neck, and came down 
again, concealed all the time by the 
jumbling together of the cabin, the 
rigging, and the mast. 

Dea continued to murmur. She 
moved her lips, and by degrees the 
murmur became a melody. She sketch- 
ed out, with the pauses and omissions of 
delirium, the mysterious call that she 
had so often addressed to Gwynplaine 
in Chaos Conquered. She began to 
sing; and her singing was vague and 
low, like the humming of a bee : 


* Noche, quitate de alli. 

La alba cauta. . . 

She interrupted herself: 

— Ho, it is not true ; I am not dead. 
What was I saying ? Alas ! I am alive. 
I am alive, and he is dead. I am be- 
low, and he is above. He is gone, and 
I remain. I shall not hear him talking 
and walking anymore. God had given 
us a little bit of paradise upon earth ; 
He has taken it away again from us. 
Gwynplaine, it is over. I shall not feel 
him near me any more. Never. His 
voice ! I shall not hear his voice any 
more. 

And she sang : 

t Es menester a cielos ir. . . 

. . . Quita, quiero, 

A tu negro 
Caparazon ! 

And she stretched out her hand, as 
though seeking whereon to lean, in the 
infinite. 

Gwynplaine, starting up beside IJr- 
sus, who was suddenly petrified, knelt 
before her. 

— Never! said Dea, never! I shall 
not hear him any more. 

And she began singing again, ab- 
stractedly : 

Quita quiero, 

A tu negro 
Caparazon ! 

Then she heard a voice, the well- 
loved voice, that answered : 

X O ven I ama ! 

Eres alma, 

Soy corazon. 

And, at the same time, Dea felt 
Gwynplaine’s head beneath her hand. 
She gave vent to a cry inexpressible : 

— Gwynplaine ! 

A starry luminousness gleamed upon 
her pallid face, and she tottered. 

Gwynplaine received her in his arras. 

— Alive ! cried Ursus. 

Dea repeated : 

* Night, go away ! The dawn is singing. 

t Thou must go to heaven. Leave, monster, 
thy black callipash. 

+ Oh ! come, love I Thou art soul. I am heart. 


346 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


— Gwynplaine ! 

And her head was bent down against 
Gwynplaine’s cheek. In very low tone, 
she said : 

— You come down again ? I thank 
you. 

And, lifting up her brow, seated on 
Gwynplaine’s knee, strained in his em- 
brace, she turned toward him her sweet 
face, and fixed upon Gwynplaine’s eyes 
her own eyes filled with darkness and 
with rays of light, as though she were 
looking at him. 

— It is you ! said she. 

Gwynplaine covered her gown with 
kisses. There are words, that are at 
once words and cries and sobs. AU 
ecstasy and all grief are blended there- 
in, and break forth confusedly. There 
is no sense in them, and yet they say 
every thing. 

— Yes, I ! It is II I, Gwynplaine ! 
I, whose soul you are, d^ you hear ? I, 
of whom you are the child, the wife, 
the star, the breath ! I, of whom you 
are the eternity I It is I ! I am here ; 
I hold you in my arms. I am alive. I 
am yours. Ah! when I think that I 
was on the point of ending it all. A 
minute more ! Without Homo ! I will 
tell you of it. How near is despair to 
joy! Dea, let us live! Dea, forgive 
me! Yes, yours forever. You are 
right ; touch my forehead ; assure your- 
self that it is I. If you knew ! but 
nothing can separate us any more. I 
emerge from hell, and I mount up again 
to Heaven. You say that I come down 
again; no; I reascend. Here I am 
again with you. Forever, I tell you. 
Together! We are together! Who 
would have said that? We find each 
other again. All the evil is ended. 
There is nothing now but enchantment 
before us. We will begin again our 
happy life ; and we will shut its door 
so closely, that evil fortune shall no 
more be able to enter in. I will re- 
late every thing to you. You will be 


astonished. 'J’he vessel has started. 
Ho one can make it out that the vessel 
has not started. We are on the way, 
and at liberty. We are going to Hol- 
land ; we will be married ; I am not 
troubled about gaining my livelihood — 
who is there that can hinder that? 
There is nothing any longer to fear. I 
adore you. 

— Not so fast ! stammered out IJrsus. 

Dea, trembling, and with the thrill 
of a celestial touch, passed her hand 
over Gwynplaine’s profile. He heard 
her saying to herself : 

— It is thus that angels are made. 

Then she touched his clothes. 

— The leather collar, said she. The 
hooded cloak. There is nothing changed. 
All is as it was before. 

IJrsus, stupefied, brightened up, 
laughing, bathed in tears, looked at 
them, and spoke to himself an aside : 

— I don’t understand it at all. I am 
an absurd idiot. I who saw him car- 
ried to earth! I cry, and I laugh. 
That’s all I know. I am as much of an 
ass, as though I too myself were in love. 
But that’s what I am. I am in love 
with the pair. Old brute, away with 
you! Too many emotions. Too many 
emotions. This is what I feared. No ; 
it is what I wished. Gwynplaine, treat 
her gently. In point of fact, let them 
embrace. That is not my affair. I as- 
sist at . the incident. What I experience 
is droll. I am the parasite of their hap- 
piness, and I take my share of it. I am 
for nothing in it, and it seems to me 
that I am for something in it. My 
chUdi'en, I bless you. 

And, while IJrsus delivered his mono- 
logue, Gwynplaine explained : 

— Dea, you are too lovely. I don’t 
know where my mind was in those 
days. There is absolutely only your- 
self upon earth. I see you again, and 
I do not yet believe it. On board this 
bark! But, tell me, what then has 
happened ? And into what a state you 


PARADISE FOUND AGAIN HERE BELOW. 


have been thrown ! Where is the Green- 
Box? You have been robbed; you 
have been driven away. It is in- 
famous. Ah ! I will avenge you, I will 
avenge you, Dea. They shall have to 
deal with me. I am a peer of England. 

Ursus, as though struck by a planet 
full in the breast, fell back and looked 
attentively at Gwynplaine. 

— He’s not dead, that’s clear; but 
can he have gone mad ? 

And he listened with suspicion. 

Gwynplaine resumed : 

— Be at ease, Dea. I will lay my 
complaint before the Chamber of Peers. 

Ursus examined him again, and 
touched himself on the middle of the 
forehead with the tip of his finger. 

Then, making up his mind : 

— It’s just as well for me, murmured 
he. This will go on all the same. 
Be mad, if you like it, my Gwynplaine. 
It is man’s right. For my part, I am 
happy. But what does it all mean ? 

The galliot continued to pursue its 
course, gently and rapidly; the night 
grew darker and darker ; fogs that 
came up from the ocean invaded the 
zenith, where there was no wind to 
sweep them away; a few of the larger 
stars were visible, and blurred them- 
selves one after the other, so that at 
the end of some time there were no 
more at all, and all the sky was black, 
and infinite, and soft. The river widen- 
ed ; and the two banks left and right 
became only two slight lines in brown, 
almost blended with the night. A 
soothing effect was educed from all this 
shade. Gwynplaine was half-seated, 
holding Dea in his embrace. They 
talked, interchanged exclamations, 
chattered, whispered. Dialogue wasted. 
How picture thee, 0 joy? 

— My life! 

— My heaven I 

— My love ! 

— All my happiness ! 

. — Gwynplaine ! 


347 

— Dea, I am intoxicated. Let me 
kiss your feet ! 

— It is you, then ! 

— At such moment as this, I have 
too much to say at once. I do not 
know how to begin. 

— A kiss ! 

— O my wife I 

— Gwynplaine, do not tell me that I 
am beautiful. It is you who are hand- 
some. 

— I find you again ; I hold you on 
my heart. That is so. You are mine. 
I am not dreaming. It is surely you. 
Is it possible ? Yes. I come back to 
life. If you did but know ; there have 
been all sorts of events. Dea ! 

— Gwynplaine ! 

— I love you. 

And Ursus murmured : 

— I feel as joyous as a grandfather 1 

Homo had come out from under- 
neath the hut ; and, going from one to 
the other, discreetly, not requiring that 
any attention should be paid to him, 
licked away with his tongue at random, 
now at Ursus’ big shoes, now at Gwyn- 
plaine’s cloak, now at Dea’sgown, now 
at the mattress. It was his mode of 
conferring a benediction. 

They had passed by Chatham and the 
mouth of the Medway. They were draw- 
ing near the sea. So serene had been the 
misty expanse, that the descent of the 
Thames had been effected without diffi- 
culty ; no manoeuvres had been required, 
and not a sailor had been called on deck. 
At the other end of the galliot, the mas- 
ter steered, constantly at the tiller. At 
the stern, there was only this man ; at 
the bow, the lantern threw its rays 
upon the happy group of beings who, 
at the depth of misfortune suddenly 
changed into happiness, had just been 
brought together thus unexpectedly. 

All at once, Dea, disengaging herself 
from Gwynplaine’s embrace, stood up. 
She pressed both her hands upon her 
heart, as though to keep it in place. 


348 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


— Wliat is the matter with me ? said 
she. There is something here. Joy is 
stifiing. It is nothing. It is good. In 
reappearing, 0 my Gwynplaine, yon 
have dealt me a blow. A blow of hap- 
piness. All of Heaven, that enters the 
heart, is delirium. You absent, I felt 
myself dying. Y ou have restored tome 
the true life, that was passing by. I 
have had within me, as it were, a rend- 
ing asunder, the rending asunder of 
darkness, and I have felt life spring up 
within me, glowing life, a life of fever 
and of delights. It is extraordinary, 
that life with which you have inspired 
me. It is so heavenly, that it causes 
some slight suffering. It is as though 
the soul grew larger, and could scarcely 
contain itself within the body. This 
seraphic life, this plenitude, flows ever 
to my head and thrills through me. I 
have something like a beating of wings 
within my breast. I feel strangely, but 
very happy. Gwynplaine, you have 
raised me from the dead. 

She turned red, then pale, then red 
again, and fell. 

— Alas ! said IJrsus, you have killed 
her ! 

Gwynplaine stretched out his arms 
toward Dea. What a shock — supreme 
anguish coming upon supreme ecstasy ! 
He would have fallen himself, if he had 
not had her to support. 

— Deal cried he, shuddering, what 
ails you? 

— Nothing, said she. I love you. 

She was in Gwynplaine’s arms, as 
loose linen that you gather up. Her 
hands hung down. 

Gwynplaine and IJrsus laid Dea upon 
the mattress. She said feebly : 

— I cannot breathe lying down. 

They placed her in sitting posture. 

IJrsus said : 

— A pillow I 

She answered : 

— Why ? I have Gwynplaine. 

And she put her head upon the shoul- 


der of Gwynplaine, seated behind her 
and holding her up, his eye wandering 
and full of woe. 

— Ah! said she, how sweet this 
is ! 

IJrsus had caught hold of her wrist, 
and was counting the pulsations of the 
artery. He did not shake his head ; ho 
did not say any thing; and what he 
thought could only be guessed from the 
quick movement of his eyebrows, open- 
ing and closing themselves convulsively, 
as though to prevent the flood of tears 
from escaping. 

— What is the matter with her ? ask- 
ed Gwynplaine. 

IJrsus put his ear close down to Dea’s 
left side. 

Gwynplaine repeated his question 
eagerly, though trembling lest IJrsus 
should reply to it. 

Ursus looked at Gwynplaine; then 
at Dea. He was livid. He said : 

— We ought to be off Canterbury. 
The distance hence to Gravesend is not 
very great. It wilb be flne weather all 
night. We need not fear any attack* at 
sea, because the fleets of war-ships are 
on the coast of Spain. We shall have 
a good passage. 

Dea, sunk within herself, and paler 
and paler, crumpled up the stuff of her 
gown in convulsive fingers. She gave 
vent to a sigh inexpressibly thoughtful, 
and murmured : 

— I comprehend what this is. I am 
dying. 

Gwynplaine rose up, terrible. IJrsus 
held up Dea. 

— Dying! You die? No; that shall 
not be. You cannot die, die at this mo- 
ment ! die all at once ! it is impossible. 
To give you back, and to take you away 
again, in the same minute ! No. Such 
things are not done ! If so, it would be 
that God willed that we should doubt 
Him. If so, all would be a snare — earth. 
Heaven, the cradle of infants, the suck- 
lings of mothers, the human heart. 


PAEADISE FOUND AGAIN IIEEE BELOW. 


349 


love, the stars 1 You know not what 
you say, Deal You shall live. I 
insist upon your living. You know 
how to obey me. I arh your husband and 
your master. I forbid your leaving me. 
Ah, Heaven! Ah, wretched men ! NTo; 
this cannot be. And I shall remain up- 
on earth, after you 1 This is so mon- 
strous, that there would be no more sun I 
Dea, Dea, rally yourself. It is a little 
moment of agony that will pass away. 
We have shivering-fits sometimes, and 
then think no more of them. It is ab- 
solutely essential for me that you should 
be well, and that you should not feel 
any more pain. You to die ! Why, 
what have I done to you? It drives 
me mad, to think of it. We belong to 
one another ; we love each other. Ypu 
have no motive for going away. It 
would be unjust. Have I committed 
any crimes? Besides, you have for- 
given me. Oh! you would not have 
me become desperate, a villain, a mad- 
man, damned? Dea, I pray you, I con- 
jure you, I entreat you with clasped 
hands — do not die ! 

And writhing his clinched hands in 
his hair, in an agony of fear, and 
choked with tears, he threw himself at 
her feet. 

— My Gwynplaine, said Dea, it is 
not my fault ! 

A little froth tinged with red came 
to her lips that Ursus wiped off with a 
corner of her gown, and that Gwyn- 
plaine, prostrated, did not see. Gwyn- 
plaine held Dea’s feet clasped, and ap- 
pealed to her in all sorts of confused 
terms. 

— I tell you, I will not have it. You 
die ! I have not strength for it. Die ! 
yes; but together. Hot otherwise. 
You die, Dea? There is no way by 
which I can consent to it. My divinity ! 
My love! Make it clear to yourself 
that I am here ! I swear to you that 
you shall live. Die ! why, then, you 
do not figure to yourself what I should 


become after your death ! If you had 
but an idea how necessary it is for me 
not to lose you, you would see that it 
is positively impossible. Dea! look 
you, I have but you. What has hap- 
pened to me is extraordinary. You 
do not dream that I have traversed all 
of life in a few hours. I have recog- 
nized one thing, which is that there is 
nothing at all. You, you exist. If 
you are not in it, there is no more sense 
in the universe. Remain. Have pity 
on me. Since you love me, live. I 
have found you again, and it is that I 
may keep you. Wait a little. There 
is no going away in this manner, 
when we have scarcely been together 
a few minutes. Be not impatient. Ah ! 
good God, how I suffer ! You do not 
complain of me, do you? You under- 
stand thoroughly that I could not do 
otherwise, because the wapentake came 
to look for me. You will see that you 
will be able to breathe better very soon. 
Dea, all is arranged now. We are go- 
ing to be happy. Do not plunge me 
into despair ! Dea, I have done nothing 
to you ! 

These words were not said, but sob- 
bed. There was perceptible in them a 
mingling of dejection and of revolt. 
From Gwynplaine’s breast came forth 
a moan that might have attracted doves, 
and a roar that might have made lions 
recoil. 

Dea replied to him, in a voice less 
and less distinct, interrupting herself 
at almost every word : 

— Alas! it is of no use. My own 
loved one. I see well that you do all 
that you can. An hour ago, I was will- 
ing to die; now I am no longer willing. 
Gwynplaine, my adored Gwynplaine, 
how happy have we been ! God had 
set you into my life ; He withdraws me 
from yours. And now, I am going 
away. You will remember the Green- 
Box, will you not? — of your poor little 
blind Dea? You will remember my 


350 


BY THE KING’S COMMAND. 


song. Do not forget the tone of my 
voice, and how I said to yon : — I love 
you ! — I will come hack to say it to 
you, at night, when you are asleep. 
We found each other again ; hut it was 
too much joy. Tliis must finish very 
soon. It is I decidedly, who set off 
first. I love my father, Ursus, much, 
and Homo, our brother. .You are kind. 
There is no air here. Open the win- 
dow. My Gwynplaine, I never told 
you; hut I was jealous on account of 
a woman who came here once. You 
do not even know of whom I would 
speak. Not true! Cover up my arms. 
I am somewhat cold. And Fihi and 
Vinos, where are they? We end hy 
loving everybody. We make friends 
of those, who have seen us in our happi- 
ness. We are grateful to them for hav- 
ing been there while we were content. 
Why has all this happened? I have 
not properly understood what has 
taken place during these last two days. 
Now I am dying. You will leave me 
in my gown. A while ago, in putting 
it on, I thought that it would he my 
winding-sheet. I want to keep it. 
There are some of Gwynplaine’s kisses 
on it. Oh I nevertheless, I could as- 
suredly have wished still to live. How 
charming was the life we led, in our 
poor hovel that rolled along! There 
was singing. I listened to the clapping 
of hands. How delicious it was, never 
to he separated ! It seemed to me that 
I was in a cloud with you ; I explained 
every thing well to myself; I distin- 
guished one light from another, though 
blind; I knew that it was morning, 
because I heard Gwynplaine ; I knew 
that it was night, because I dreamed 
of Gwynplaine. I felt something en- 
wrapping me around, which was his 
soul. AYe have adored each other 
sweetly. All this is going away, and 
there will he no more songs. Alas! 
it is not possible, then, to live on ! You 
will think of me, my well-loved one ! 


Her voice became weaker. As the 
mournful agony decreased, her breath- 
ing became more difficult. She bent 
back her thumb under her fingers, a 
sign that the last minute was near at 
hand. The stammer of the dawning 
angel seemed to be faintly indicated, 
in the gentle death-rattle of the vir- 
gin. 

She murmured : 

— You will remember, will you not? 
— for it would be very sad that I were 
dead, if you were not to remember me. 
I have been naughty, sometimes. I 
ask forgiveness from you all. I am 
very sure that, if the good God had 
willed it, since we do not take up much 
room, we should have been happy 
again, my Gwynplaine, for we could 
have gained our livelihood, and we should 
have been together in another country ; 
but the good God has not willed it. I 
do not know in the least why I am dy- 
ing. As I did not complain of being 
blind, I did no harm to any one. I 
should have asked nothing better than 
to remain blind forever, at your side. 
Oh ! how sad is it to go away ! 

Her words came short, and were ex- 
tinguished one after the other, as though 
some one had blown them out. They 
no longer heard her. 

— Gwynplaine, she resumed, is it 
not so — ^you will think of mo ? I shall 
need it, when I am dead. 

And she added: 

— Oh ! keep me back ! 

Then, after a pause, she said : 

— Come and join me so soon as you 
possibly can ! I am going to be very 
wretched without you, even with God. 
My sweet Gwynplaine, leave me not too 
long alone! It is here that para- 
dise was ; up, yonder, it is only Heaven ! 
Ah I I am stifling ! My loved one, my 
loved one, my loved one ! 

— Mercy I cried Gwynplaine. 

— Adieu 1 said she. 

— Mercy! repeated Gwynplaine. 




PAEADISE FOUND AGAIN HERE BELOW. 




And lie fastened liis moutli upon the 
fair cold hands of Dea. 

She was for a moment as though she 
did not breathe. 

Then she raised herself up on her 
elbows; a far-reaching light passed 
across her eyes ; and she smiled inef- 
fably. Her voice broke out, full-toned : 

— Light I cried she. I see ! 

And she died. 

She fell back, stretched out and mo- 
tionless, upon the mattress. 

— Dead I said Ursus. 

And the poor old simple man, as 
though falling to pieces beneath his 
despair, bent down his bald head and 
buried his sobbing countenance in the 
folds of her gown, at Dea’s feet. 

Then was Gwynplaine terrible to 
look at. 

lie stood up, raised his brow, and 
gazed forth. Over his head was the 
night in its immensity. 

Then, seen of no one, regarded none 
the less perchance in the darkness by 
some one from the invisible world, he 
stretched out his arms toward the pro- 
fundity above him, and said : 

— I am coming. 

And he began walking toward the 
bow of the galliot, as though a vision 
drew him on. 

At some steps from him was the 
abyss. 

He walked slowly. He did not look 
beneath his feet. 

He wore the smile that Dea had 
worn. 

He went forward straight before him. 
He seemed to see something. He had 
upon his eyeball a light, which was, as 


351 

it were, the reflection from a soul per- 
ceived afar oflT. 

He exclaimed : — Yes. 

At each step he drew near the edge. 

He walked in a set attitude, his arms 
raised, his head thrown back, his eye 
fixed, with a phantom’s movement. 

He advanced, without haste and with- 
out hesitation, with a fatal precision, as 
though he ’had not close to him the 
yawning gulf and the open tomb. 

He murmured: — Be tranquil. I 
follow you. Well do I distinguish the 
sign that you make to me. 

He did not take his eyes off one point 
in the sky, at the very highest of the 
shade. He smiled. 

The sky was absolutely black. There 
were no stars ; but evidently there was 
one that he saw. 

He passed across the deck. 

After some steps, firm and ominous 
he reached the extreme edge. 

— I come, said he. Dea, here I am ! 

And he continued to walk on. There 
was no bulwark. The void was before 
him. He set therein his foot. 

He fell. 

The night was thick and dull ; the 
water was deep. He was swallowed 
up. It was a disappearance, calm and 
sombre. Ho one heard or saw any 
thing. The vessel continued to float on, 
and the stream to run. 

Soon afterward, the galliot entered 
upon the ocean. 

When Ursus came to himself, he no 
longer saw Gwynplaine ; but, near the 
edge of the vessel, he saw Homo, who 
Wf^s howling into the dark space as he 
looked at the sea. 


V 

\ 


THE 


END. 




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BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS. 


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edges, G 00 

Attache in Madrid ; or. Sketches of the Court of 

Isabella 11. 1 vol., 12mo, Cloth, 1 60 

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Bartlett. Personal Narative of Explorations in 
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' i 

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3 


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‘Macaulay’s Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous.^ 
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Spectator (The). On tinted paper. Fine bold 

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I 


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1. Too Strange not to be True. By Lady Georgiana 

.III Fullerton. 

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Oliver Twist 172 pages 25 cents. 

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Jacob Faithful. 12mo “ “ 

Naval Officer. ISmo “ “ 

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Newton Forster. 12mo “ “ 

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4 


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The Earl’s Daughter. 12mo ;.. Cloth, 1 50 

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Principles of Education, drawn from Nature 
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rose “ 

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Ben Sylvester’s Word. 18mo Cloth, 75 

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Brady (Jas. T.) A Christmas Dream Cloth, 1 2C 

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extra, or antique 15 OC 

Bunyan (John). The Pilgrim’s Progress, and 
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Byron Gallery. The Gallery of Byron Beauties. 

Royal 8vo morocco, extra, 15 OC 

Cloud Crystals ; a Snow-Flake Album Cloth. 3 00 

Coles’s (Abraham) Latin Hymns. With Original 
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Dies Ine. In Thirteen Original Ti’ansla- 


tions. With Photographs Cloth, 2 60 

— Stabat Mater (Dolorosa). The Sorrows of 

Mary. With Photographs Cloth, 1 50 

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Mary. With Photographs Cloth, 1 60 


Old Gems in New Settings. With Photo- 
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The above Four Parts bound together. 


forming one elegantly printed volume. Cloth, 4 50 
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The Microcosm. A Poem, “Know Thy- 


self.” With Photographic Illustrations. Cloth, 2 25 
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Cornwall (Barry). Dramatic Scenes. With other 

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6 00 Morocco, 10 00 

Dana (Charles A.) The Household Book of Po- 
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Dresden Gallery. Being a Selection of Subjects 
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1 vol., 4to, Morocco, antique 30 00 

Dusseldorf Gallery. Gems from the Dusseldorf 
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ed^'cs 40 00 

Foster’s (Birket) Beautiful Gift-Books. In^uni- ) 
form size and style. 

Campbell’s Gertrude of Wyoming ...Cloth, gilt, 2 50 > 

Goldsmith’s Deserted Village Cloth, gilt, 2 50 

Campbell’s Pleasures of Hope Cloth, gilt, 2 60 ' 

Gray’s Elegy Cloth, gilt, 2 60 

Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner Cloth, gilt, 2 60 

Milton’s L’ Allegro Cloth, gilt, 2 50 | 

Keats’s Eve of St. Agnes Cloth, gilt, 2 50 ! 

Wordsworth’s Pastoral Poems Cloth, gilt, 2 50 


CLASSIFIED LIST OF BOOKS SUITABLE FOB LIBBABIES. 


Bloomfield’s Fanner’s Boy Clotli,gUt, $2 50 

Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield Cloth, gilt, 2 50 

Tennyson 8 May Queen Cloth, gilt, 2 60 

' Cloth, gilt, 2 50 

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Life of Man Symbolized by the Months of the 

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Mackenzie (W . B.) Married Life ; its Duties, 

Trials, and Joys Red Cloth, gUt, 2 50 

1 i. T,- . White Cloth, gilt, 3 50 

Merchant of Venice. By William Shakespeare. 

Dlustrated with 20 large Engravings on Wood, 

T. . , _ . . Morocco, 7 50 

! Illustrated, 20 00 

f Schiller Gallery. 59 Portraits 20 00 

Woodside and Seaside. Illustrated Cloth, 4 00 

nr . , X, X, , , Morocco, 8 00 

Munich, the Celebrated Galleries of. 4to, Morocco, 

nx rr, X Autiquo, 30 00 

New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. With Engravings on Wood, from De- 
signs of Fra Angmico, Pietro Perugino, Fran- 
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Morocco, 50 00 

^ew Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. Illustrated by authentic views of 
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8vo. Morocco, 20 00 

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Paul and Virginia. Illustrated by nearly 200 De- 
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Poets’ Gallery. With 36 splendid Portraits, Mor., 15 00 
Queens of England. Illustrated with 29 splendid 
Portraits of the Queens. 1 vol., royal 8vo, Mo- 

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Republican Court : or, American Society in the 
Days of Washington. An entirely new, re- 
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Morocco, antique, 20 00 

Souvenir of Friendship. Selections from Cele- 
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Svo Cloth, gilt, 5 00 

; Speckter’s Picture Fables. Every page Illustrated. 

k ^ 12mo Extra Cloth, gilt, 2 00 

Spiritual Conceits. Extracted from the Writmgs 
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1 vol., small 4to. London. . . .Morocco extra, 12 00 
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imperial 8vo Morocco, 20 00 

Tribute Book. A Record of the Munificence, 
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Vienna, the Galleries of. A selection of Engrav- 
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Imperial Gallery of the Belvedere, 1 vol., 4to, 

Morocco, antique, 30 00 

Voices of Joy and Thanksgiving. A Collection of 
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Waverley Gallery. A Series of Hlustrations of 
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Winter Wreath of Summer Flowers. Illustrated 
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Words of Hope and Comfort for the Sorrowful. 
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appropriate Texts of Scripture, both from the 
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Half Morocco, ornamented Cloth, gilt sides. ..40 00 
World-Noted Women ; or. Types of Womanly At- 
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ZAW BOOKS. 

Anthon’s Law Student Sheep, 4 00 

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